
Class ____S_17Z3_ 

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Gopyi ight N^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



America to England 



and 

Other Poems 



By 

Minot J. Savage 



G, P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Cbe Ikiuckcrbocfter prces 

1905 



LiBKARYof )ONG«hSSl 

AUG 11 1905 

ovrm ex AXc Wen 

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COPY a. 



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Copyright, igos 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



"C^be ftnicftcrbocfter flJress, mew ipocft 



DEDICATION 



To her whose loving eye divines 
Rare meanings writ between the lines. 
And on whose ear oft falls a tone 
Caught by the listening heart alone. 
But shall I to the world disclose 
Her name ? Enough to say, she knows. 



Preface 

IN his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope 
writes, 

I lisped in numbers — for the numbers came. 

I can hardly say that, with perfect truthfulness. 
I sometimes wonder if Pope himself could. 
But I have been writing rhymes ever since 1 
was seven years old. My father — a farmer — 
offered the munificent reward of one cent a 
page — nothing said as to size — for all I would 
write in the way of original composition — 
either prose or verse. 

When some of Mr. Beecher's parishioners 
complained because he said so many witty 
things in the pulpit, he told them that they 
would appreciate his reticence if only they knew 
how many witty things he refrained from say- 
ing. So, although I have published a great 
deal of verse, my friends would appreciate my 
self-denial if only they knew how much I have 
not published. The world in general has a 
way of protecting itself by declining to buy or 
read. 



vi Preface 

During a life of hard work, verse writing 
has been my recreation or play. If it has 
served no other purpose, it has enabled me 
to escape, now and again, from the tragedy 
and burden of the real world and find re- 
cuperation by wandering in the ideal lands 
which lie "East of the sun and West of the 
moon." 

As poetry was my first, so it is my last 
love. Hood somewhere says that there 
are three grades of work in this kind: 1st 
Poetry ; 2d Verse ; 3d Worse. I have written 
floods of "Verse." I fear I have written 
a large quantity of "Worse." I venture to 
hope I have also written at least a little 
"Poetry." A good many years ago I printed 
a volume of Poems. Some of it I trust is 
worth keeping; much of it I know is not. I 
have also printed a volume of Hymns. The 
present volume contains selections from them, 
together with some things which have ap- 
peared in newspapers and magazines, and 
some others which have not before been 
printed at all. 

Acknowledgment is due to Harper s Maga- 
zine, the Century, the Arena, and others for 
permission to include in this volume certain 
contributions which have appeared in them. 

My frail craft must now take its chances 



Preface vli 

with a thousand others on the vexed sea of in- 
terest and opinion, and float or go down as 
friends, the great public, or fate may decree. 

M. J. S. 

New York, 26 June, 1905. 



Contents 



America to England 

The City of Is . 

By the River 

Pan's Revenge . 

The Ebbing Sea . 

Love and Death 

Two Ships . 

A Modern Fairy Tale 

The Song of a Man . 

The Angel of Labor 

America's Birth 

Hail ! Truth 

God's Whisper . 

To A Friend 

The 136TH Anniversary of 

OF Burns 
''Sixty" . 
My Grandson 
One Hundred Years 
Verses 
Lincoln 

The Dead Prophet — Wendell Phillips 
Morals and Religion 



the 



Birt 



HDAY 



I 

5 
8 

13 
19 
21 

23 
24 
26 
30 
33 
35 
36 
3^ 

40 

44 
46 

49 

57 

65 

6S 

71 



Contents 



What Reward ? 




74 


Phillips Brooks 




77 


To Lowell 




78 


Robert Collyer 




79 


J. G. Whittier . 




8o 


Martineau 




8i 


Charles Howard Montague . 


82 


Emma Lazarus ,. 


. 


83 


Jesus .... 


. 


. 84 


George 0. Carpenter 


. 


85 


To A. F. Bradley, Photographer . 


87 


Song of the Sandman 


. 


88 


Mating Song 


. 


90 


The Plea of the Mountains 


92 


Carcassonne 


. 


• 95 


Mary's Dream . 




98 


Seeking Jesus . 




107 


Resurgam . 




III 


Shine Forth, Truth! 




. 114 


Madonna . 




116 


" You Did It Not " . 




119 


The Shadow 




121 


Buddha's Parable 




122 


The Mystic Hope 




124 


Love Eternal . 




125 


I Haste No More 




126 


"Ad Astra " 




127 


Hymn .... 




. 128 


Morning 




. 130 


The Christmas Search 




. 131 



Contents 




xi 


PAGE 


Easter Longings 134 


To Truth . 






. 139 


Prayer .... 






141 


Evolution . . . , 






142 


The American Song . 






143 


My Birth . 






. 145 


The Forbidden Song 






148 


The House of the Soul 






• 150 


Life's Wonder . 






153 


Hidden Springs . 






. 158 


Motherhood 






. 161 


One Left . 






. 163 


The People 






. 164 


The Sea's Secret 






. 167 


The Cat-Bird . 






. 172 


The Leaf . 






. 176 


Only a Leaf 






. 177 


Loneliness of Truth-Seeking . 




. 178 


God Made Our Lives to be a Song 




. 179 


Pursuit 




. 180 


In Common Things 






. 181 


The Old Problem 






. 183 


Infidelity . 






. 184 


Caliban 






. 185 


Never Weary . 






. 186 


Where is God ? . 






. 189 


The Pescadero Pebbles 






190 


Going to Sleep . 






192 


Life from Death 






J94 


Galileo 






195 



xii Contents 








PAGE 


Magellan ....... 196 


Kepler .... 






197 


Darwin .... 






. 198 


Ralph Waldo Emerson 






199 


All Things New 






200 


" Members One of Another " 






. 201 


Compensation . 






202 


Wisdom and Beauty . 






203 


Man's Critic 






204 


Mrs. Poyser on Women 






205 


Fortune .... 






206 


The Shadow on the Beach 






207 



America to England 

And Other Poems 



America to England 

THE youngest of the nations, 
Grown stalwart in the West, 
Yearns back to where each morning 

Glows o'er the ocean's crest. 
And cries: O Mother Country, 

Ours is your ancient pride, 
And, whate'er may befall you, 
Our place is at your side. 

Ours are the old traditions 

Of Saxon and of Kelt ; 
We visit rare Westminster 

And kneel where you have knelt. 
Your restful country places, 

Hills, lakes, and London town — 
Their memories we inherit 

And share in their renown. 

Your Avon is our Avon ; 

Song knows no border line; 
The stars their radiance mingle 

Which in one heaven shine. 



America to England 

Within your "Poets' Corner" 
Longfellow's gentle grace 

With all the august shadows 
Is given a welcome place. 

Your mighty men of science 

Who 've made the world anew, 
Transforming earth and heaven, 

Wrought not alone for you. 
From Newton up to Darwin 

Each, from his truth-built throne, 
Nods greeting to our homage — 

We claim them for our own. 

You fought the fight for freedom 

And taught mankind the creed ; 
Long ere our "Declaration" 

There was a Runnymede. 
We won at Appomattox, 

But you had won before; 
Our Bunker Hill and Yorktown 

Look back to Marston Moor. 

Our Washington and Lincoln 
Were of your sturdy stock — 

Cut out of Milton's quarry, 

One piece with Cromwell's rock. 

Our Pilgrims learned the lesson 
That English means the free, 



America to England 

And through the wintry weather 
They brought it over sea. 

Here in the West grown mighty, 

Though we alone might win, 
We look back to the Home Land 

And feel the thrill of kin ; 
Then let us stand together 

Till over all the earth 
Our manhood and our freedom 

In every land have birth. 

One vision let us cherish — 

That, as the years increase, 
We two may teach the nations 

To love and welcome peace. 
But should the war-cloud gather 

O'er Neva or the Rhine, 
And should the threatening navies 

Wheel into silent line — 

Then, when the peaceful heavens 

Are darkened in eclipse, 
May our two lightnings mingle 

One thunder from our ships. 
We need but stand together 

To hold the world in fee, 
And to the noblest issues 

Control the age to be. 



4 America to England 

Then let this glorious vision 

Along our pathway gleam 
As up the future leads us 

The Seer's, the Poet's dream. 
One race and one tradition, 

English, American, 
And one high inspiration — 

The destiny of man ! 



The City of Is 

IN the weird oLd days of the long agone 
Rose a city by the sea ; 
But the fishermen woke one startled dawn 

On the coast of Brittany 
To hear the white waves on the shingle hiss 
And roll out over the city of Is 
And play with its sad debris. 

For the city had sunk in a single night ; 

And *t was only yesterday 
That the bride had blushed in her young de- 
light, 

That the priest had knelt to pray, 
That the fisher cried his wares in the street, 
And all the life of the town complete 

Went on in its old-time way. 

And still the city lies under the sea, 
With each square and dome and spire 

Distinct as some cherished fair memory 
Of a vanished heart's desire, 
5 



6 The City of Is 

That once like a beautiful palace stood 
Rock-based, to defy the wind and the flood, 
Time's crumble and tempest's ire. 

And as the memory, buried deep, 

O'erswept by the flooding years, 
Will still its shadowy old life keep 

With ghosts of its joys and tears, 
So still, in the wave-drowned city of Is, 
The people live over, in care and bliss, 

Their shadowy hopes and fears. 

When the sea is rough — so the sailors say — 

And the sunny waves are green. 
And the winds with the white-caps are at play, 

The tips of the spires are seen ; 
And peering down through the lucent deep 
They glimpses catch of the city asleep, 

Agleam with its fairy sheen. 

And on boats becalmed, when the lazy swells 

Sleep lulled by the idle air. 
They hear, sweet-toned, the low music of bells 

Roll calling the city to prayer. 
So ever the shadowy joy of old 
Rings on ; and ever sad bells are tolled 

To echo a soul's despair. 

Each life is a sea that sweeps above 
Its sunken city of Is, — 



The City of Is 7 

The long-cherished dream of a cherished love 

That only in dreams we kiss. 
What yesterdays are sunk deep in the soul 
Above whose lost treasures to-day's waves roll, 

To mark what our sad hearts miss ! 

Oh the glimpses rare of the submerged past ! 

They gleam in the light awhile, 
They mock us with visions, that may not last, 

Of faces that used to smile ; 
And now and then, from the busy to-day, 
The echoing tones of the far-away 

Our listening hearts beguile. 

But not in the sunken city of Is 

Shall the heart its treasures see; 
No pilgrims forlorn to an old-time bliss 

And a vanished past are we ; 
For all the glad music of olden-times 
Are only faint echoes of grander chimes 

That ring in the time to be. 



By the River 



DEAR town! How peacefully it sleeps 
Clasping the river in its arms, 
While Time, as softly by he creeps. 

Wakes with no sound its drowsy charms! 

Still sleeps my vanished childhood there; 

I but go back, and all is mine : 
My playmates' shouts rise free from care. 

And endless afternoons still shine ! 

The elm trees stand beside the brink 
And look down in the river clear; 

They know me, as of old, I think, 
And murmur as I nestle near. 

And thou, just there across the road, 
Old Meeting House, where unseen feet 

Still haunt the place where once there glowed 
Devotion's flame with Calvin's heat, — 

The fire burns not, as once of yore. 
Upon thine altar: as flows on 
8 



By the River 

The river to return no more, 

The prestige of thy past is gone ! 

The shadowy form of Change flits by 
On wings that, passing, brush my eyes, 

And lo ! in vision I descry 
The outlines of the centuries. 



I see the fetich-worshipper; 

I see piled graves to altars grown ; 
The Ganges flashes; then there stir 

The priests around some blood-stained stone. 

The buried shapes of Egypt start ; 

Assyria, India, Greece and Rome: 
Old temples glorified by art. 

With sky, man-copied, for a dome. 

I see, above Gehenna's vale. 

The gold-tipt pinnacles aflame, 
'Neath which blood writes the awful tale 

That celebrates Jehovah's name. 

Then, while the temple stone from stone 

Is rent in ruin, o'er the loss. 
As lightning 'gainst a cloud is shown, 

There flashes high th' avenging cross. 



lo By the River 

So ages pass. The gentle souls 

Who gave their lives in gentle deeds, 

With background oft of priestly stoles, 
Or fagots shaped to cruel creeds. 

A Torquemada's hate I see, 

A Bruno rapt in vision high, 
A Luther loud for liberty, 

Servetus glad for truth to die! 

Then, swept by blasts of hate more strong 
Than biting Winter's bitter breath, 

I see a ship that flees from wrong. 

And fears a falsehood more than death. 

These, bearing seed whose future yield 

Shall leave their cherished faiths outgrown, 

Storm-driven, plough the watery field, 
As oft God's sowers do, alone! 



So tread I in my vision dim 

The pathway that the race has trod, 

Past crumbled altar, voiceless hymn. 
The shades of many a long-dead god ! 

But, dying into higher life, 

I see the wondrous process lead 
The stumbling race, through peace and strife. 

To nobler thought and grander deed ! 



By the River n 

The heart of Evolution opes 

And shows the secret it conceals; 

Still loftier lives and sweeter hopes 
And higher worships it reveals. 

'T is God then all the way, more near 
Than is the day's light or the air; 

And when He seems to disappear, 
Lo! He surrounds us everywhere! 



Roused from my revery, I turned : 
Beneath the elms, across the street, 

The windows in the old church burned 
To gold as sunk the sunset sweet. 

I heard the old-time worship there, — 

The preacher's voice, the sounds of praise: 

I saw gray heads bowed low in prayer, 
And lived again my childhood's days! 

Then said I, "They would count it loss 
To see their forms and faith decay; 

'T would seem denial of the cross — 
These new thoughts of the later day. 

"But I can smile as Calvin's face 
Fades out the pulpit there above, 

While Law is lifted to its place — 
A law whose inmost heart is love. 



12 By the River 

** And as I look on, up the years, 
I muse not on the old that 's gone, 

I gladly see, o'er cloudy fears, 
The flushes of a fairer dawn! " 



So flow, sweet river, from the hills, 
Flow down and far and out to sea; 

I, in the faith my heart now fills, 
From past to future go with thee! 

So, like the river, flow O years ! 

From God to God thy course must run! 
Through toil, blood, rest, hopes, smiles, and 
tears, 

Some day shall finish what *s begun ! 

I love my childhood's pictured dreams, 

I love the pieties of yore. 
But up the years I catch the gleams 

Of promises that lure me more! 

Would I go back? Nay, nothing 's lost; 

The good of all the past is fair 
In life's great future; so, at cost 

Of shadows, I will find it there! 



Pan's Revenge 



The legend runs that, at the hour of the agony of Jesus on 
tlie cross, when he cried out, " It is finished," certain mari- 
ners heard a wailing voice sound over the sea — " Great Pan 
is dead!'' Immediately the Oracles became silent; for 
Paganism had expired. 

ACROSS the waves there swept a tone 
As if the dying gods made moan. 
The mariners (with faces white, 
And parted lips, and hush of fright), 
The while they furled their sails, stood still 

with dread 
As wailed the dolorous cry, ''Great Pan is 
dead ! " 

There seemed to come across the sea 

A sob of mortal agony 

From One who, more than mortal, cried 

" 'T is finished ! " as the sad day died. 
Then wailed Olympus to the answering sea, 
**Lo! thou hast conquered, man of Galilee! " 
13 



14 Pan's Revenge 

One summer, one fair, wondrous night. 
Whose round moon flooded with her light 
The modern city's Papal dome, 
And crumbling ruins of old Rome, 

I sat upon the Coliseum's wall, 

And dreamed how earth's great empires rise 
and fall. 

I thought how, through the day just gone, 
From church to church I 'd wandered on, 
Had seen in rite and heard in prayer 
Old Pagan Rome still living there: 
And, as I mused, my lips moved, and I said — 
"And is it true Christ reigns, and Pan is dead? " 

Then, rising on the. evening wind 
From Tiber's banks, where he 'd reclined 
The sultry afternoon all through. 
Pan' came ; and on his reed he blew 
The same old music that the gods had thralled, 
Or charmed the nymphs to follow where he 
called. 

And as he piped, upon the evening clear 
The winds were voices chanting in my ear : — 
**I take more shapes than Proteus; they 
Who thought the Great God Pan to slay 

' Pan was the wind-god. He slept through the heat and 
waked to play his pipe at evening. He also stood as repre- 
sentative of universal nature. 



Pan's Revenge 15 

But little dreamed, when they had sealed my 

doom, 
That I should spring new-christened from the 

tomb. 

"For still the city is my home. 
And I reign over 'Christian' Rome. 
What boots it that the names are new. 
While rites and prayers and service due 
Are paid as when the yellow Tiber rolled 
Past the Pantheon with its dome of gold? 

"The thronging pilgrims come from far 

To Peter's grand basilica; 

But wearing Christian Peter's name. 

Stands Tonans Jupiter the same, 
Exalted still within the highest place : 
They kiss his feet and sue his ancient grace.* 

"Though under other forms it be, 

Still reigns my mystic Trinity : 

And Isis-Mary from the Nile 

On Horus-Jesus' still doth smile. 
The goddess-mother and the virgin birth — 
My old-time dream — still dominates the earth. 

* The so-called statue of Peter is really a bronze statue of 
Jupiter Tonans, the Thunderer. 

' The Virgin Mother and her child belonged to more than 
one pagan religion. In one case at least, the statue of them 
is ancient Egyptian rechristened. This particular Mary and 
Jesus is really Isis and Horus. 



1 6 Pan's Revenge 

"When comes the winter solstice, all 

Still hold my Saturn's carnival; 

The Sun-god's birthday sets the date, 

And with his rites they celebrate 
Their Jesus' unknown birth: the wood-god's 

tree 
Still lures to town the sylvan deity.* 

"Still Easter' keeps alive the tale 
Of her who, rapt from Enna's vale, 
The sad earth mourned through wintry hours, 
Till back from hell, all crowned with flowers, 
She came, the goddess fair of light and bloom — 
Earth's prisoned life burst from her frozen 
tomb ! 

"My Buddha's vanity of life. 

His hermit, fled from child and wife; 

The fear of nature '; and the awe 

Of magic put in place of law; 
The mumbled prayer, the pessimistic wail — 
All these tell o'er again the old-time tale. 

^ The Christmas evergreens are a relic of the pagan wor- 
ship of the wood-god. By bringing the trees into the houses 
it was supposed that he would be induced to follow. 

2 It is well known that the origin of Easter is the spring's 
resurrection. See story of Persephone. 

2 The vanity of life and the doctrine that all matter is evil — 
these ideas are importations from Oriental paganism. 



Pan's Revenge 17 

"High o'er the altar, and the door, 
On darkened windows painted o'er — 
That fitly shut out natural light — 
My emblems still my soul delight : 
The naked church if stripped of what was mine 
Were bare of symbol, robe and rite, and sign/ 

"Their heaven is not so fair the while 

As was my blest Elysian Isle^; 

And never Pagan oracle 

Voiced such a god as built their hell. 
My heaven was human ; and I knew no air 
That echoed with a measureless despair. 

"But for their wondrous Nazarene, 

That star-soul, lofty and serene, 

Their whole religion is my own: 

I sit, baptized, on Peter's throne. 
While rite and dogma and the priestly power 
Usurp Christ's place, still lasts my ancient 
hour." 



A spirit's mocking laughter blew 

The crumbling gates and arches through; 

While low the wind sank, and the moon 

^ Every rite and symbol of Christianity may be found in 
the older religions. 

^ See Greek and Roman doctrines as to future life. 



1 8 Pan's Revenge 

The temples mellowed with night's noon: 
And in the arena's shadows down below 
Fought once again the shades of long ago. 

I lived the "Christian" centuries o'er, — 

The Papal pomp; the Corso's roar; 

The purchased sin ; the banished thought ; 

The hindrance to man's progress wrought; 
The real Christ still 'neath the Church's ban ;— 
And then I said, " Thou art revenged, O Pan ! ' 



The Ebbing Sea 

THERE is a sea whose mystic tide 
Beats ever round our earthly shore; 
Perchance it somewhere comes to flood, 
But here it ebbs forevermore. 

Who steps into its darkling waves 

Is swept out by the undertow; 
While, hidden by the o'erhanging mist, 

Whereto they drift none ever know. 

A boat comes; and, from out the air, 
A call that but the summoned hears : 

Some loved one then, with wondering eyes 
And pale face goes, despite our tears. 

Is there a land beyond this sea? 

Sometimes there looms a vision fair, 
And the mists lift ; but is it real. 

Or a mirage built on the air? 

Sometimes a wind from off the sea 

Wafts landward faint, sweet odors strange: 

Are they delusive? or are there 

Rare flowers beyond all death and change? 
19 



20 The Ebbing Sea 

I stoop down listening on the shore: 

Is it a whisper that I hear? 
Or does my longing fancy feign 

These voices that enchant mine ear? 

Oh that some friend from o'er this sea 
Might come back, with the word of trust, 

And make me know that love still lives, 
That soul is soul, though dust be dust ! 



Love and Death 

ONCE, walking through a sunny glade, 
Young Cupid stopped and caught his 
breath, 
As, shuddering, he beheld a shade 

The young Immortal knew was Death. 

"And wherefore, from thy realms below. 
Dost thou invade my pleasant places? 

To blanch red cheeks with love aglow, 

And for the grave mark youthful graces?" 

Thus Love; and added: "But for thee, 
Thou keeper of the shadowy portals, 

Life were one long festivity. 

Why hatest thou these sorrowing mortals?" 

Then Death, with gentle voice, replied, 
"0 thoughtless Love! Art not aware 

That, should life's pleasant things abide. 
Men would not count them half so fair? 



22 Love and Death 

*'What rose that rivals beauty's bloom, 
Whose red her bosom makes more pale, 

But buys new value for my doom, — 
A tenderer love for being frail? 

"Dost thou not know that loving arms 
Clasp closer, with mxore passionate breath. 

When passing hours ring their alarms, 
And lips snatch bliss from waiting death? 

**With how much tenderer words men speak 
When looms the shadow on their sight ! 

They would not blight with tears the cheek 
They kiss — perhaps — its last good-night ! 

"How knowest thou, O Love, but this. 
The bitter drop with which I dash 

Life's cup, but adds a keener bliss 

Thou wouldst destroy with kindness rash?' 

Death ceased, and Love looked down awhile. 

"Yes," said he, "thine are words of worth: 
While eyes can weep and eyes can smile, 

Between us we will rule the earth I " 



Two Ships 



THE heavy mists trail low upon the sea, 
And equally the sky and ocean hide, 
As two world-wandering ships close side by 
side 
A moment loom and part; out o'er the lee 
One leans, and calls, "What ho!" Then 
fitfully 
A gust the voice confuses, and the tone 
Dies out upon the waters faint and lone. 
And each ship all the wide world seems to be. 

So meet we and so part we on the land : 
A glimpse, a touch, a cry, and on we go 
As lonely as one single star in space. 
Driven by a destiny none understand, 

We cross the track of one 't were life to 
know. 
Then all is but the memory of a face. 



23 



A Modern Fairy Tale 

IN many a legend old 
The story weird is told 
Of how some maiden fair 
Foes in enchantment hold. 

The sleeping beauty lies 

Deaf, dumb, with sightless eyes, 

Shut from the outer air, 
Fair earth, and sunny skies. 

Then comes the Prince and breaks 
The evil spell, and takes 

Her hand, while from her sleep 
To love and life she wakes. 

Then all the commonplace 
Of life is clothed with grace, 
And love and wonder keep 
The glory of her face. 

Spell-bound, deaf, dumb, and blind, 
Our Helen Keller's mind 

In weird enchantment slept 
The walls of sense behind. 
24 



A Modern Fairy Tale 25 

The Prince of love and truth, 
Thrilled with divinest ruth, 

His watch beside her kept, 
In pity of her youth. 

He touched her where she lay — 
For love will find a way — 

And woke her sleeping soul, 
And gave its powers free play. 

She speaks, she hears, she sees I 
Deaf, dumb, blind still, all these, — 

Her soul transcends the whole, 
And walks abroad at ease ! 

What ancient fairy tale 
One moment can avail 

To match the truth sublime 
By which its wonders pale? 

In old-time **age of gold " 
Were no such marvels told 

As mark the present time. 
And as the future hold ! 



The Song of a Man 

IN the swirl of the fire-mist of undated ages, 
God was in the energies teeming to birth, 
Till the rings globed to planets, and chaotic 
rages 
Were tempered to form, and outshone the 
green earth. 



Then, born of sea-ooze, from the jungle aspir- 
ing, 
Life swam, crept, flew, leapt, as unfolded 
the plan, 
Till upright on his feet, and his eyes heaven- 
desiring, 
His cry grown to voice, earth was crowned 
with a man ! 

Then, on through the slow, savage ages unrest- 
ing, 
God-spurred to he knew not what wonderful 
goal, 

26 



The Song of a Man 27 

Through blood and through tears his high 
birthright attesting, 
Man climbed from the beast to brain, heart, 
and a soul ! 

As all he could dream of divine was enfolded 
In his wonderful self that his skill sought to 
scan, 

So the rites of his mystic religion he moulded 
To the worship of God in the guise of a man. 

We dream of the future, with yearning eyes 
peering 
Along up the pathway of aeons untrod, 
And still we but know, as the goal we are 
nearing, 
The Kingdom of Man is the Kingdom of 
God. 

The crown of the world, of religions, of races, 
Of all that gives effort's achievement its zest, 
Is but truth and but love shining out of the 
faces 
Of men all sublimed to their noblest and 
best. 

So what wonder, O Boston, if all our hearts 
sought him? 
The travail of earth and religion's high plan, 



28 The Song of a Man 

And the struggle of civilization have wrought 
him: — 
For man is life's triumph ; and he was a man ! 

It is thus that he touched us, the high and the 
lowly ; 
He called us to manhood as being divine; 
He taught that life's most common duties were 
holy; 
That the dewdrop and star with the same 
lustre shine. 

So, over all fences of creed do I greet thee, 
Thou fellow of all noble souls that have 
wrought 
In all ages and nations, that now, as they meet 
thee. 
Will give thee the welcome thy service has 
bought. 

For no, thou 'rt not dead, and the world has 
not lost thee; 
Thou walkest our streets still, although thou 
dost tread 
The paths where the noble ones gone may 
accost thee ; 
A double life thine, whom we speak of as 
dead! 



The Song of a Man 29 

O city he honored, how now will you praise him ? 

To what he aspired let the city aspire ! 
Will ye out of hard stones a cold monument 
raise him 

Whose heart was so soft and his spirit all fire? 

Yes, mould of the bronze his grand stature, 
great features. 
And then, by the church that he loved, let 
him. raise 
The voice, heard though silent, for all of God's 
creatures. 
Till the years grow decrepit and Boston de- 
cays. 

But, make honest your markets, your politics 
purer ; 
Sick souls and sick bodies go comfort and 
heal ; 
Go, make simple justice 'twixt man and man 
surer; 
Go, thrill to high honor the whole common- 
weal ! 

Go, make Massachusetts the handsel, the 
earnest 
Of all earth has striven for since time began ; 
His life and his teaching thou 'It know when 
thou learnest 
A man s truest monitment inust be a man I 



The Angel of Labor 

** [7 OCT and hand and head are weary 
1 As I plod along my way : 

None escapes the curse of labor 
Oh that life were made for play ! " 

Thus I cried, one tired evening, 

As I sat within my room, 
While the twilight's deepening shadow 

Suited well my inward gloom. 

Did I sleep, or was I waking? 

For from out the shadow came — 
Grand of form, with face benignant — 

One who called me by my name — 

*'I," said he, **am God's strong angel, 
Sent to lead the human race 

Up the toilsome path of progress 
From its lowly starting place — 

"All you 've grown to, or accomplished, 
All you hope, you owe to me; 

Yet you talk of my hard bondage 
While 't is I who set you free. 
30 



The Angel of Labor 31 

"Look far down the winding pathway 

To the jungle of your birth : 
See how I have lifted, crowned you, 

Made you King of all the earth ! 

"What is it that makes you human? 

Brain to think, and hand to do ! 
From the beast, strange transformation! 

These I made and gave to you ! 

"Then, beneath my inspiration. 

You have hewn the forests down, 
Turned the deserts into gardens, 

Left the cave and built the town. 

"Wind and steam I 've taught to aid you, 
Bade the magnet be your guide, 

Till the oceans are your highways, 
And on every sea you ride. 

"Arid plains no more divide you; 

Mountains separate no more; 
All the products of all nations 

Now are nigh to every door. 

"Factories hum to clothe and feed you; 

Knowledge hurries to and fro ; 
Art stands ready with her beauty ; 

All the skies with promise glow. 



32 The Angel of Labor 

"Are you weary? Sleep then, sheltered 
'Neath the roof that I have built; 

Then go on to make to-morrow- 
Fairer, better, if thou wilt. 

**And remember, while to better, 
Nobler things you onward go, 

All you own, above the bestial. 
You to me, strong Labor, owe.'* 

Wakened now, I looked about me. 

But the form I saw had fled. 
Fair the earth lay in the moonlight. 

And the stars were thick o'erhead. 

Then I rose, and in my doorway 
Stood and overlooked the town ; 

Saw the fields stretch to the river, 
And the distant mountains brown ; — 

Thought of all the good and beauty 
That had crowned my common life; 

Thought of all the wide world's blessing 
Man had wrought through toil and strife. 

Then I said, **Hail, blessed Labor, 
Toil of hand, and thought of brain ! 

Thou indeed art God's strong angel 
Teaching Joy to conquer Pain. 



America's Birth 

So long had despots ruled the earth, 
Man had been crushed so long, 
That Liberty, to prove her worth. 
Must spring, all armed, to mighty birth, — 
Not right alone but strong! 

In clash of arms and battle-smoke 

Her puissance must show- 
That now, at last, a power awoke 
To smite old wrongs with deadly stroke, 

And answer blow for blow ! 

The hour had struck: on Concord farms 

Beside the gentle stream, 
All unappalled by war's alarms : 
Plain manhood Empire met in arms: 

So hasted on man's dream! 

"Fire! " Rang out brave John Buttrick's word 

Still British every man 
Were they who then fate's order heard : 
The hammer's click on each conferred 

The name — American ! 
33 



34 America's Birth 

And ever since that hour had birth 

This thing has come to be, — 
"America" has won this worth, 
That now it stands, o'er all the earth, 
The name of Liberty ! 



Hail! Truth 

NO power on earth shall sever 
My soul from Truth forever — 
In what-e'er path she wander, 
I Tl follow my commander. 
All hail ! all hail ! beloved Truth. 

Whoe'er the foe before me, 

Where-e'er her flag flies o'er me, 

I '11 stand and never falter, 

No bribe my faith shall alter. 

Lead on! lead on, thou mighty Truth! 

And when the fight is over. 
Look down upon thy lover; 
He asks for well-done duty. 
To see thy heavenly beauty. 
Reveal thy face, celestial Truth. 



35 



God's Whisper 

THE resinous breath of pine-trees, 
The shade of mountains brown 
The strong pulse of the ocean, — 
All these bring back to town. 

Its pictures, — sea and hill range; 

Sunset, moonrise, and plain, — 
The artist dreams but paints not, 

Transferred to heart and brain ; 

A breeze of vital nature. 
With vigor to sweep clear 

Religious, social customs, 
And tone our atmosphere; 

The smack of simple manhood, 
That beggars wealth or place. 

That, through all false conventions, 
The clear-cut truth can trace ; 

The sense of the Eternal, 

That broods o'er sea and earth, 

Through which all noble feeling 
And high resolve have birth, — 
36 



God's Whisper 37 

All these — the gifts of nature, 

If one have ears and eyes^ — 
Brought back to town, may teach thee 

Thy kinship with the skies. 

Thou child of God, through nature, 

Choose still this better part ; 
And thou shalt hear God's whisper; 

And feel his beating heart ! 



To a Friend 

WHO GAVE ME A LILAC BUSH 

SO often I drean. of the garden, 
Which bordered the dusty old road, 
Where fairies called butterflies flitted, 
And bees grumbled under their load, — 
The garden which holds o'er my manhood its 

spell 
While tales of my boyhood dear memories tell. 

There were bushes all fragrant with roses, 

Red currants and gooseberries green. 
Cucumber and melon vines creeping, 
And herbs sweet as ever were seen ; 
And just by the end of the old house a row 
Of lilacs all purple and tall used to grow. 

Just under my old bedroom window 

The lilac trees stood in their bloom, 
And when I leaned out in the morning, 
Their fragrance came into the room ; 
So now, as I yield to the memory's spell, 
Once more I their dew-pungent odors can smell. 
33 



To a Friend 



39 



So, thank you, dear friend, for the giving 

Of more than you knew you 'd bestowed ; 
You 've given me back the old garden 
Which bordered the dusty old road ; 
You have given me back the dream-lilacs which 

grow 
In the sweet fairy land of the dear long ago ! 



The 136th Anniversary of the 
Birthday of Burns 

DEAR Robert Burns, the years are flying, 
And all along Time's roadway lying 
Great names, like fallen leaves, are dying; 

But thine is seen 
A leaf on Life's tree, death defying, 
Still fresh and green. 

A peasant child, the State could find thee 
But some low task to which to bind thee, 
So she to penury resigned thee. 

Like penny-wise man, 
Nor saw the proud wings bound behind thee, 

A poor exciseman. 

The Church, through creed-blind eyes that 

scanned thee, 
A heretic rebellious banned thee. 
Nor knew what wings of angels fanned thee 

With breaths of truth, 
Nor heard the higher voice command thee 
With loving ruth. 
40 



Anniversary of Burns 41 

When shone thy star o'er all declension, 

Society's cheap condescension 

For its amusement deigned attention 

To thy great name; 
But who would now their lordships mention 

But for thy fame? 



The learned, blinded by their letters, 

Saw thee in ignorance's fetters, 

Too proud to bow before thy "betters," 

Nor dreamed that thou 
Wert one to whom all men, as debtors. 

One day would bow. 

O Poet, born of Scottish heather, 
Of daisy blooms and misty weather, 
Aurora tints, star-beams, no tether 

Thy fancy bound 
To heaven's height, or hell's deep nether, 

Or sight or sound. 

The scented winds o'er Ayrshire blowing, 

The Doon amid its grasses flowing, 

The plough, the mouse, the daisy growing — 

These knew thee poet ; 
Now all earth's winds thy thoughts are strow- 
ing, 

And all men know it. 



42 Anniversary of Burns 

The cotter, 'mid his children kneeling, 
The eldrich fear Tarn's blood congealing. 
The louse o'er Fashion's bonnet stealing — 

Things mean or grand — 
Thou *st wrought to lesson's of high feeling 

With magic hand. 

Oh, peasant-born, thy heart of fire 
Taught all earth's lowly to aspire, 
The real to seek with high desire. 

The coin to scan, 
Than stamp of rank to value higher 

The God-made man. 

Oh, truer than thine age's preaching. 
Thy heart of sympathy outreaching, 
Enfolded in its sobbed beseeching 

The lowest hell; 
There rings out in thy hopeful teaching 

Death's own death-knell. 

Thou wast no saint ; but, man or woman. 
Who knows what 't is to be but human, 
What hounds of passion still pursue man — 

And we are such — 
Will hear God's whisper of the true man, 

"Thou lovedst much." 

We walk God's earth, though few men know it ; 
**The eye to see, I will bestow it. 



Anniversary of Burns 43 

Make him of common things the poet," 

Great Nature said ; 
"The hidden glory, he shall show it 

Where'er men tread." 

While stars shall wander their blue spaces, 
While spring flowers seek their old-time places, 
While hearts beat and, from human faces. 

Love looks out fair. 
We '11 con the lines thy genius traces, 

Dear Bard of Ayr ! 



" sixty " 



THEY say I 'm Sixty: what of that? 
Well, Sixty, so I 'm told, 
Means that beneath the human hat 
Are signs of growing old. 

Well, signs or no signs, it is true 

I do not feel that way ; 
Never the sunrise, flowers, or dew 

Were fresher than to-day. 

The sea, the hills, the stars at night, — 

Yes, all this wondrous earth 
To me are still unworn and bright 

As at creation's birth. 

Friends are as dear and love as sweet — 

As dear, as sweet? Not so ! 
They 're dearer, sweeter, as the fleet 

Years come and smile and go. 

The shadows? Yes: they 're not forgot. 

The eyes at times grow dim ; 
And I would give — what would I not? — 

For one old look of him, — 
44 



" Sixty " 45 

Of him who went so bravely out, — 

Out where I cannot see ; 
But tears can never make me doubt 

*T is well with such as he. 

In spite of illness and of pain, 

In spite of work and care. 
The years have brought so much of gain 

The smile of friends they wear. 

So, — well, I travel bravely on ; 

There must be good before; 
Since, oh, so fair was what is gone, 

I '11 wait what 's still in store. 

I 'm Sixty ; but I look for light : 

'T was sunrise years ago; 
But, as the earth turns through the night, 

Another dawn will glow. 



My Grandson 

Born September 14, 1895 

SO fresh you are from — who knows what? 
You must know much which we 've forgot. 

Then Langdon Savage Simons, let 
Me ask you now, ere you forget — 

Is George Macdonald's story true 

Of how you got your ''eyes so blue "? 

Was Wordsworth right? Do babies know 
What wise men seek in vain below ! 

Did you leave heaven at your birth, 
And come down stairs of stars to earth? 

Was your first use of breath a cry 
Because you had to leave the sky? 

And when in sleep you smile, is 't true 
Your playmate angels talk with you? 
46 



My Grandson 47 

Is *t that you earth's new Hmits feel, 
That fists strike out with angry zeal? 

The babblings you to mamma teach, 

Are they fond bits of heaven's lost speech? 

And in your solemn silences, 

Do you still hear high harmonies? 

You look so wise, we fain would know 
The problems which you ponder so. 

The moon you 'd grasp: does it recall 
Old contests at celestial ball? 

You clutch with most determined hand, 
As one once used to high command. 

From what high station did you come 
To rule a common, earthly home? 

So close you seem to life's fresh heart 
The secret can you not impart? 

Still silent ! Well, we then will fold 
You to our hearts, the mystery old ! 

Homunculus, could we but know. 

What currents through that small brain flow,— 



48 My Grandson 

We *d know the mystic meaning then 
Of heaven and God, of earth and men ! 

But we can love, and this shall be 
The solving of life's mystery! 

You cling to us ; and we in turn 

The trust in your sweet eyes will learn. 

"A little child shall lead them" ; so 
The prophet said of long ago. 

"Of such the kingdom" ; so one spake 
Who bore hfe's burdens for love's sake. 

Some day a child like you shall see 
The kingdom which is yet to be. 

Your silence means not lips grown dumb 
Perhaps from heaven you did not come; 

No matter! In such tiny hands 

Is hidden power whose high commands 

Shall shape the earth anew, till here 
The dreamed-of heaven shall appear! 

So, welcome ! though we old folks know 
When new kings come, the old must go. 



One Hundred Years 

GEORGE PEABODY, ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVER- 
SARY OF HIS BIRTH 

HERE we stand upon the summit, looking 
back a hundred years, 
Down along the weary pathway men have 
clim.bed in toil and tears. 

As we gaze, the vision rises of the wonders 

they have wrought, 
All the glory of their striving, all the triumph 

of their throught. 

V/eakest born of all earth's creatures, all the 

rest he holds in rein. 
Standing upright, skyward looking, by the 

secret in his brain. 

Long and long the slow-paced ages waited for 

the fateful day 
When the period of his nonage, his weak 

youth, should pass away. 
49 



50 One Hundred Years 

He had made the still air vocal by the magic 

of his lips, 
He had taught the winds to bear him o'er the 

sea in winged ships : 

He had taught the fire to serve him in the 

fusing of earth's ores, 
He had borne the battle's thunder round the 

ocean's echoing shores: 

He had made the marble plastic as he caught 

some beauty's gleam, 
Parthenon and vast cathedral bodied forth his 

waking dream : 

Wings of type he gave his fancies, and they 

flitted o'er the earth. 
Kindling in the hearts which caught them 

visions of heroic worth. 



But the old earth waited, waited, dimly seeing, 

through her tears. 
Hunger, hate, and sorrow vanquished by the 

better, gladder years. 

For the earth still hid her secrets, and her man- 
child sought in vain 

How to wield her subtle forces as the sceptres 
of his reign. 



One Hundred Years 51 

So behold him, half-developed, but one hun- 
dred years ago, 

Ships slow coasting, teams slow plodding, all 
his life-work hard and slow. 



But I see, in vision rising, all the old earth 

passed away; 
Lo, a new heaven arches o'er us, ushering in a 

fairer day ! 

Man at last has grasped the secret, like the 

magic lamp of old ; 
At his feet earth's fairies, giants, lay the 

wonder-powers they hold. 

He commands, and lo, the mountains, tun- 
nelled, levelled, quick obey. 

While the rising valleys hasten thus to build 
the king's highway. 

Lines of flashing steel are gleaming, and I hear 

the tread afar 
Of the fiery-hearted dragon harnessed to the 

lordly car. 

Oceans long time called the pathless are but 

ferry-ways at last, 
Where the smoky-nostrilled racers all the 

white-winged ships rush past. 



52 One Hundred Years 

Then the fire-beaked cloud-bird, flashing wild 

across the stormy sky, 
Perches on the hand of Franklin, folds his 

wings and nestles nigh. 

So protean is his nature that he takes a thou- 
sand forms, 

Docile now to human uses who was once the 
god of storms. 

Shakespeare's Puck, the idle boaster, forty 

minutes would require 
Round the earth to put a girdle; but the 

genius of the wire 

Asks a flashing second only round the globe 

his thread to bind, 
While the outworn Puck, hard-breathing, 

lashes on the lagging wind. 

Changing now his shape of magic. Ho! he 

cries, bend down your ear ! 
Through a thousand miles of distance voices 

speak and we can hear. 

Change again, and he, a drudge, is laughing 

'neath a monstrous load, 
Or, as if in play, is dragging cars along the 

common road. 



One Hundred Years 53 

Change once more, and see, our cities, once so 

shrouded in their nights. 
All outshine the stars in glory, flashing with a 

thousand lights. 

Millions are the tireless fingers, steel or iron, 

whose magic skill, 
Shaping forms of use or beauty, hasten to obey 

his will. 

All these wonders are but promise of the 

wonders yet unborn ; 
Every day on tiptoe standeth waiting for the 

morrow's morn. 

For earth's foster-child, acknowledged, all his 

sorrows overpast. 
All the world's resources mastered, shall find 

home and peace at last. 



But, as yet, amid the marvels which on every 

hand increase, 
Palace-shadowed, Labor suffers and can only 

dream of peace. 

Men are selfish, men are grasping; and the 

weak ones sigh and moan. 
Trampled by their stronger fellows who the 

beast have not outgrown. 



54 One Hundred Years 

Here and there above the brutal, climbs some 
man to heart and brain, 

Sensitive to others' sorrow as to his own keen- 
est pain. 

Here and there one gathers riches, for his own 

joy not alone, 
Holding wealth in trust for others, counting all 

of his their own. 

From the dim, far off, first ages, poets, seers 

have seen a day 
Brightening over some far future all whose 

clouds have fled away. 

For our earthly conquest mocks us, if, along 
the dreary years, 

Still the many miss joy's pathway for the blind- 
ness of their tears. 



So, beyond all other triumphs, glad we hail the 

nobler man ; 
Crown of all material glory is the soul that will 

and can ! 

Let the old earth be but peopled with strong 

brains and tender souls, 
Then no heaven can be fairer than the vision 

that unrolls. 



One Hundred Years 55 

Few they have been? But they have been; 

and the harvest 's in the seed ; 
Lo, I see the glad fields waving, and the end 

of human need. 

Let the wide earth be foundation ; on it build 

a pediment, 
Wherein every human triumph, gain and gold 

shall all be blent. 

Then, upon its lofty apex, seen afar o'er every 

land, 
Crown of all, of all the glory, let a human 

figure stand. 

Let his eyes be kind and tender, let his hand 

be open wide. 
In his face let all that 's human be lit up and 

glorified. 

So stands Peabody before us, goal and crown 

of all the race, 
High o'er all material greatness, holding so 

his fitting place ! 



Wonders of a century's progress, put them all 

beneath our feet ; 
Let them serve the human in us, so the man 

shall be complete. 



56 One Hundred Years 

Let the one man grow to millions, till the 

earth, from sea to sea. 
Thrills beneath the happy footsteps of the race 

that is to be. 



Verses 



Read at dinner of Union League Club, Chicago, February 

22, 1895. 

THE greatest of births of the earth's lab'ring 
ages, 
Sore travailed in pain of the dimly seen plan, 
The vision of poets, the dream of her sages, — 
The State which gives order and freedom to 
man ! 

As man vi^as himself the prefigured, enfolded 
In all the low life which climbed up to his 
day. 
In flocks and in herds was the crude pattern 
moulded 
Of human society aeons away. 

Ere man became man, in groups winged or 
four-footed. 
Was the mother-love, father-love, brother- 
love born 
Which, deep in the heart of the infinite rooted. 
Smiles brotherhood, anarchy laughing to 
scorn. 

57 



58 Verses 

This builded the home, the first state, and, 
enshrining 
Within its pure precincts the promise men 
saw- 
In vision, far up the dim ages outshining, 
Mankind all one family, love the one law. 

Through blood and through tears the bright 
vision pursuing. 
Enslaved, beaten, tortured, the race has 
climbed on, 
Spite of passion and ignorance, ever renewing 
The hope which, though flickering, flamed 
still and shone. 

From the East to the West migrating tribes 
passed it, 
The torch which has followed the sun on his 
way, 
From Asia, from Egypt, Greece, Rome, till at 
last it 
O'er Europe shone out with its promise of 
day. 

In forests Germanic, on stormy Norse high- 
lands. 
The light caught the eyes of the sturdy and 
free, 



Verses 59 

Till the kings and the bishops of England's 
brave islands 
Saw portents which augured the manhood to 
be. 



A Church and a State without crozier or sceptre, 
All ruled and all rulers, a brotherhood blest 
At last revealed Liberty, — long had God kept 
her 
To walk the new earth men had found in the 
West. 



Last born of the ages, O Country the dearest 
On which shines the sun as he lights the glad 
earth ! 
Thou God who in heaven our gratitude hearest, 
Give us grace half to prize her magnificent 
worth ! 



We see him to-night who fulfilled Time's pre- 
vision ; 
The ages had waited, and lo, the man came! 
Gone now the king's scoff and the noble's 
derision, 
The world crowns with honor great Washing- 
ton's name. 



6o Verses 

Calm statesman ! Yet broke from his calmness 
wrath-flashes 
To blast, like the lightning, aught low or 
aught mean ; 
Serene were his glances, but under his lashes 
Hid sword-blades for treachery swift-drawn 
and keen. 

He saw up the future with vision prophetic, 
Where loomed all the dangers which threaten 
this hour, — 
The spirit of faction, the sleep apathetic, 
The climbing of conscienceless scoundrels to 
power. 

O friends, let us listen, for still he is speaking. 

The gift of the travail of all of the past, 
The State which the weary world long has been 
seeking, 

The hope of the poets and seers, shall it last? 

Oh, trust not the dream that 't will outlast the 
spirit 
Which thrilled it when Liberty first gave it 
breath ; 
No "Manifest Destiny " ever can clear it. 
When Folly drives onward to breakers and 
death. 



Verses 6i 

What perils beset us? See ignorance voting, — 
As strong, reckless pilots steer wildly nor 
care; 
If dreaming of safety, in confidence doting, 
We let the ship drift, it will go — tell me 
where ! 



Hear the tramp of the immigrant thousands 
that throng us ! 
We welcome them? Yes, but what tongue 
do they speak? 
Till reborn American, let them not wrong us. 
Or exile the freedom they came here to seek ! 



The foreign allegiance of those whose pre- 
tension 
The State would subject as a province of 
heaven — 
Disloyal the oath which distracts our attention 
While poisons in secret their unhallowed 
leaven ! 



When money, not character, makes legislation, 
When rights are exploited to favor the few, 

When justice is exiled, God pity the nation 
Shipwrecked for the salvage by plot of the 
crew! 



62 Verses 

When the city's own aldermen wait on the 

lobby, 

The power without that 's all hands and no 

heart, 

A slotted machine grinding out its pet hobby, 

Whose action the weightiest penny will start ; 

When workers are "hands," and the man we 
are slighting, 
When the corporate conscience is made out 
of gold, 
When the canker of greed every industry 's 
blighting, 
When justice grows timid and robbery bold ; 

When bosses defiant are snapping their fingers 

At law and at order all over the land. 
Then the doom that delays and all patiently 
lingers, — 
The flight back to heaven of Freedom *s at 
hand. 



Do I dream of such doom in this day of our 
glory? 
Nay, friends, I 'm but reading you God's 
changeless law ; 
Do we choose to repeat the old world's tragic 
story? 
The lesson relentless we 've only to draw. 



Verses 63 

Th* Eternal will change not; on one sole con- 
dition 

Can men or can nations win life and win peace. 
The laws of life broken, in vain all petition ; 

Obedience only from death can release. 

The star of God's promise arose o'er this 
nation, 
And eyes dim with tears saw it gleam in the 
skies ; 
Shall it fall from its orbit of bright, brief dura- 
tion? 
Then where o'er the sad earth again will it 
rise? 

The world is not old, 't is the break of the 
dawning: 
His serpents young Hercules crushed, in his 
strength ; 
So those that our slime of corruption is spawn- 
ing. 
Rousing up, our young giant will strangle at 
length ! 

Let the men who are men, who hate meanness 
and lying, 
Be true to the vision that Washington saw. 
Then the wrong that disgraces, no longer de- 
fying, 
Will bow to the forces of order and law. 



64 Verses 

The fruit of the tears and the toil of past ages 

We hold as in trust for the ages unborn ; 
Let us write the word ''just " on our country's 
fair pages, 
Lest our children reproach us with pity and 
scorn. 

One oath let us swear, — By the God who is o'er 
us. 
By the thousands who 've lived and who 've 
died for our land, 
By Washington, Lincoln, the great gone before 
us, 
The hope of the world, our dear country 
shall stand ! 



Lincoln : 

THREE EPOCHS OF HIS LIFE 

1 

THE CALL 

THE rail-splitter ! " So did the scoffers cry 
When from the backwoods, tall, un- 
gainly, gaunt, 
The stripling came. He heeded not the 
taunt; 
For he had split rails well. And now his eye 
Was fixed upon a higher destiny. 

The pine-knot light by which he conned the 

lore 
Of his first books became a star, and o'er 
The future shone a beacon from the sky ! 

He 'd dreamed a dream. When, in his flat- 
boat days. 
He drifted to New Orleans, there he saw 
A slave-mart, and a woman's back lash- 
scarred. 

65 



66 Lincoln 

Then did he swear, his prophet soul ablaze, — 
^* If ever, Hank,'' said he, ''the time ajid lazv 
Give chance, I 'II smite this curse, and hit it 
hard!'' 



II 



THE TRIAL 

The time drew on. With Douglas for a foe, 
He stood, a knight who had not won his 

name. 
He stood, to battle nor for gold nor fame, 
But, girt with simple manhood, all aglow 
With faith in man, he fought but to lay low 
The foes of manhood, and to prove there, 

then. 
That, white, black, yellow, men were ahvays 
'}nen ; 
And so for this high truth he struck his blow. 

"Douglas," he said, "may win the nearer goal, 
But Senator and President, — no, no ! " 
God's stars too high for selfish astrolabe! 
To gain the prize, he would not sell his soul, 
And so he lost; but, through the loss, did 
grow 
The trust of men, who named him ''Honest 
Abe," 



Lincoln 67 

III 

THE VICTORY 

The dream draws nigh fulfilment. Faith in 
man 
Has called out faith, and lifted him on high, 
The leader of his age. And, when the cry 
Of clashing thousands sounded, his the plan 
To save the Nation. Through all hearts there 
ran 
The thrill electric that to heroes wrought 
The common men he trusted. And they 
fought 
As they who knew that God led on the van ! 

Still "Honest Abe," still loyal to the law, 
He would not strike e'en that which he did 
hate 
Until the hour had come, and it was right. 
Then smote he with the sword he did not draw, 
And Freedom out through War's ensan- 
guined gate 
Burst like a sun-birth, and the world was 
light ! 



The Dead Prophet— Wendell 
Phillips 

Your fathers killed the prophets, and ye build their sepul- 
chres. — Jesus. 

NO man great to his valet"? That *s 
because 
A valet sees with but a valet's eyes. 
Great is that nation, and secure its laws, 
Where there is wisdom to discern the wise. 

Know'st thou, O Boston, there hath trod thy 
street, 

A simple, plain, untitled citizen. 
One who, with level eye, the gods might greet, 

A soul of fire, a hero among men? 

When Freedom was in chains, in abject state. 
With sad voice wailing her long unheard cry — 
"Oh! who will plead my cause against the 
great?"— 
This young man leaped and answered, "Here 
am I ! " 

68 



The Dead Prophet 69 

Society, with all its cultured power, 

Old vested rights, and wealth with all its 
greed, 
These and the Church took sides in that dark 
hour, 
While wise ones sneered in that dread time 
of need. 



He turned away from lure of wealth and place. 
The great ones* patronage, his honored 
name; 
For liberty and man he chose disgrace. 

Cast out with God and branded with his 
shame. 



Then rose his voice in that lone wilderness 
Where he, with Christ and truth, were wan- 
derers long, 

Shaping such music from the slave's distress 
That all the world soon listened to his song. 



With that rare instrument, his wondrous voice, 
He played till, Orpheus-like, all souls he 
charmed; 
The abject listen, prisoned ones rejoice; 

His words turn men, all marshalled and all 
armed. 



^o The Dead Prophet 

The strong-towered Jericho of ancient wrong 
They then beleaguer, marching round its 
walls, 
His voice still chanting Freedom's deathless 
song, 
And lo, the grim enclosure shakes and falls ! 

When he who was cast out in his fresh youth, 
While Church and power and wealth be- 
smeared his name. 
Saw all caps flung aloft to greet his truth. 
And found that obloquy was now spelled 
fame! 

Then crown him, men of Boston, 'mong the 
few 
Who dared be right when right meant shame 
and loss; 
He did not stand debating false and true 
Till public favor glorified the cross. 

Go, build his monument, ye sons of those 
Who hurled their stones, and words more 
hard to bear, 

He needs it not ; but as the tall shaft grows 
Learn ye the lesson that such lives declare. 



Morals and Religion 

COME with me to this mountain! " cries 
the priest : 
"Here God abides, and this is his high place. 
None from this sacred duty is released; 

No other way canst thou find heavenly grace. 

"Here is God's altar; here does incense rise; 

Here prayers avail to turn away his wrath. 
In vain thou seekest what proud worldlings 
prize; 

This way is heaven : there is no other path." 

"Vain are all churches! " cries the moralist: 
"Thy prayers and incense fade in empty 
skies ; 
Religions are but phantoms of the mist 

That morning scatters when the sun doth 
rise. 

"Thy duty is on earth. Seek thou and find 
The laws that bind thee to thy fellow-men. 
71 



72 Morals and Religion 

The Eden dreams of early human kind 

Thou mayest make facts in earthly cities 
then." 

Thus through the world's long ages 

The battle cries are sounded. 
Now lived and wrote the sages, 

Now sophists truth confounded. 
Here priests their service chanted, 

Here hermits prayed and fasted, 
Here some brave men undaunted 

Did deeds that still have lasted. 
Till now the world has waited 

With longing and strong crying 
Until the separated 

Should find their unifying. 

For he must be one power 

Who rules both earth and heaven : 
And one law to the lower 

And to the high is given. 
There sounds down from the highest, 

And up from earth's deep places 
One voice that back repliest 

To th' asking of all races, — 

"Hear me, O jarring peoples! I am one, 
In smallest atom, or in heaven high. 

One law swings the long circuit of the sun. 
And by one law the new-fledged birdlings fly. 



Morals and Religion 73 

'* Religion binds thee to my law divine, 

And this law binds thee to thy fellow-man. 

'T is one law in the market, at the shrine: 
Earth, — heaven, — See! they're built upon 
one plan." 



What Reward ? 

HE was a boy most delicately bred, 
A town boy and his mother's only one; 
Her fair hands stroked his shapely, curly head, 
She feared, for his sake, storm and cold and 
sun. 

What had he, then, to do with suffering? 
But all brave men she 'd taught him to 
admire; 
So when he heard the country's war-cry ring. 
What could she say? His eyes were hers— 
on fire. 

A common soldier to the front he went. 

Youth, health, life, love, hope, fame, all in a 
breath. 

Into one patriotic offering blent, 

He flung, a gage, into the face of Death ! 

And he redeemed his gage where bullets hissed. 
Tipping the charging column's riving wedge ; 
74 



What Reward ? 75 

Or, prison-penned, with white lips hunger- 
kissed. 
Pain's brimming cup he drank, his country's 
pledge. 

Death he defied until death passed him by, 
Taking as surety only scars and youth; 

Then he came home, nor heaved one back- 
ward sigh 
O'er all he 'd given up for land and truth. 

A common soldier as he went he came. 

And yet a hero! Who gives more than all? 

He who gives all, nor asks for even fame, 
What is there, more than hero, such to call? 



Who was he? There were thousands such as 
he— 

Men every inch, from crown to tip of toe ! 
For such, O country, what reward shall be? 

The gods take not ; 't is theirs but to bestow ! 

And godlike men — 't was manhood that they 
threw 

Into the scale when treason kicked the beam ; 
And manhood is not purchased ! Buy the crew 

To whom high honor is a foolish dream ! 



76 What Reward ? 

This boy, and all his noble fellows, gave 

What money buys not, pays not for when 
given ! 
This market-talk dishonors every grave. 

Like simony that e'en would purchase 
heaven. 

O country, cherish all of those who need, 
But do not offer insult to brave men ! 

Leave the base scramble to the shameless greed 
That gauges manhood by the cattle-pen. 

Lift high each hero on a pedestal 

Where honor's sun upon his brows shall 
shine; 
So up the future shall their shadows fall 

To teach our children manhood is divine ! 



Phillips Brooks 

GREAT bishop, greater preacher, greatest 
man, 
Thy manhood far out-towered all church, all 

creed. 
And made thee servant of all human need, 
Beyond one thought of blessing or of ban 
Save of thy Master, whose great lesson ran, 
"The great are they who serve." So now 

indeed 
All churches are one church in loving heed 
Of thy great life wrought on thy Master's plan ! 

As we stand in the shadow of thy death. 
How petty all the poor distinctions seem 
That would fence off the human and divine ! 
Large was the utterance of thy living breath ; 
Large as God's love thy human hope and 
dream ; 
And now humanity's hushed love is thine ! 



77 



To Lowell 

DEAR Lowell, I had e'er a poet's heart 
And wandered fairy-land with childish 
feet 
And eyes all wide with wonder ; finding sweet 
The hours when, from my boyish mates apart, 
I watched to see "the little people " start 
From their leaf coverts. I half understood 
The talk the trees have in the shaded wood ; 
But how to speak, nor falter in my art? 

Then heard I such sweet utterance of my 

thought 

And turned to find the music on thy tongue— 

The first great poet that I learned to hear! 

I thank thee for the sweet love thou hast taught, 

The love that ever keeps the old earth young, 

And makes us know the gods forever near ! 



78 



Robert Collyer 

1823-1893 

O BLACKSMITH preacher, thy strong 
blows have told 
While they have rung two mighty countries 

through. 
As Thor, with his bright lightning hammer, 
slew 
The Darkness Giants, Superstitions old 
So thou hast beaten down. 

But strong and bold, 
Thou hast known how to be all gentle too, 
As are the sunshine and the morning dew 
That help the grass-blades and the flowers un- 
fold. 

"Nature and Life " art thou : in nature seeing 
That Life which blossoms in the life of men, 
And teaching men the Life and they are 
one. 
Art growing old? Nay, living in that Being 
**Who has life in himself," when past our 
ken. 
Thy life, love, work will only be begun ! 



79 



D 



J. G. Whittier 

EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY 

EAR Poet! when I looked upon thy face 
I said, "Though near fourscore, he 
grows not old." 
Naught was in him suggestive of the mould ; 
The passing years had left no withering trace, 
But only added lines of truth and grace. 
His body seemed a shell that did enfold 
Some precious bud against the winter's cold, 
Whose bloom but waited fitting time and place. 

Such life knows no decay ; for every thought. 
Each word, each deed has been for man and 
right ! 
And now, the people's praise, their glad ac- 
claim 
But echoes only what his soul has wrought. 
So, like the sun that loses not its light 
When it doth set, the afterglow is fame ! 



80 



Martineau 

I HAVE seen many old who yet were young; 
As thy compatriot, Gladstone, past four- 
score, 
Who, lord of many fields, still thirsts for 
more, 
And, just for play, will master some new 

tongue ; 
As Furness, whose fine brain is still fine strung 
For all high thoughts to play on. But thy 

youth. 
Thy still fresh eagerness for all fresh truth, 
Marks thee most youthful, youthful souls 
among! 

Most mariners at first scorn fear or ease, 
At fifty take in sail and hug the land, 

Then steer for some snug harbor in old age ; 
But thou, in quest of truth, dost sail all seas. 
In quest of truth dost coast the farthest 
strand, 
Eternal seeker still, though reverend sage ! 



8i 



Charles Howard Montague 

BRIGHT spirit, with thine earth-race just 
begun, 
Thou stoodest poised and waiting at the 

start, 
All stripped and trained, clear-eyed and 
stout of heart ; 
And not one friend was doubtful of thy run 
While yonder was the fair goal to be won. 
But, while we stood to see thee play thy part. 
Thy taut nerve snapped, and, spite of all 
love's art, 
Before thy race commenced, lo, it was done ! 

Done? Who shall say it? May no other course 
Invite thee toward another, fairer goal. 
Where thou may'st bring to bear thy 
earth-learned skill? 
For what has heaven finer than the force 
That lifts to noble aims a noble soul 

And holds it to its end with steadfast will? 



3? 



Emma Lazarus 

A RARE, sweet daughter of a wondrous 
race, 
She flamed with all the old-time prophet's 

fire, 
And woke again the echoes of that lyre 
That from the haunted Saul the clouds could 

chase. 
In her one might the heart of Miriam trace. 
Or Deborah, aroused to holy ire 
When her loved people did her soul inspire; 
Yet lacked she nothing of a woman's grace. 

Would she had lived to right her people's 
wrongs. 
To thrill and lift them with her grand soul's 
might, 
And make them worthy of her noble 
thought ! 
But let her Israel still sing her songs 

And in her counsels learn to find delight, 
Then not in vain her suffering soul has 
wrought. 



83 



Jesus 



As when the valleys all in shadow lie, 
And shadowy shapes of fear still haunt 
the night, 
Some mountain peak reflects the coming 
light. 
And waiting lips break forth with joyful cry, 
For gladness that at last the day is nigh, — 
So when some soul, that towers afar, is 

bright. 
The souls that sit in shadow, at the sight 
Grow sudden glad to know 't is light on high! 

And when these mountain-towering men can 
say, 
"We see, though it be hidden from your 
eyes," 
We can believe in better things to be! 
So, though the shadows still obscure our way. 
We see the light, reflected from the skies 
That crowns thy brows, O Man of Galilee! 



84 



George O. Carpenter 

FOR what land has he this time departed 
Who so often went sailing before? 
Have we seen him, the great- and good-hearted, 

Drift out the last time from the shore? 
Though we look with strained eyes down the 
distance. 
Though our hearts for his coming may yearn, 
Vain still must be love's strong insistence 
That waits the delayed ship's return? 

Oh, what is the place which can hold him 

Who loved the dear earth and its ways? 
What arms of new friends can enfold him 

That now in that country he stays? 
It must be a land of rare beauty 

To detain the oft-wandering feet 
Which returned at the first call of duty 

And ever found home-coming sweet. 

It must be a land of glad laughing 

For those lips bubbling over with cheer; 

There must be the loving-cup's quaffing 
For one who held friendship so dear; 
85 



86 George O. Carpenter 

There must be high service to render, 
Or he, touched by all human need, 

Would in heaven, — soft-hearted and tender- 
But find himself lonely indeed ! 

Over whatever seas he is sailing, 

Whatever strange winds fan his brow, 
What company rare he 's regaling, 

I know it is well with him now. 
So, when my last voyage I am making, 

May I go, as he went, unafraid, 
And, the pilot that guided him taking, 

May I make the same port he has made ! 



To A. F. Bradley, Photog- 
rapher 

WE all are shadows — so they say — 
And shadows fade and flee away. 
But you know how, by magic tricks, 
The fleeting shades to catch and fix ; 
And so, ere crossing Life's strange portal, 
You make us and our friends immortal. 

The husband stays his wife beside 
As when she first became his bride; 
The law of growth they must fulfil, 
And yet we keep the children still ; 
The loved ones o'er the earth who stray 
Still by our sides forever stay ; 
And those dear eyes we closed with tears 
Gaze at us from the vanished years. 

And so, dear friend, with all my heart 
I bless you and your wondrous art. 



87 



I 



Song of the Sandman 

BABY hush! the Sandman 's coming 
With his team of nightmares gray ; 
I can hear him softly humming 

As he drives adown the day — 
Bags of sand he brings and sprinkles 

On the eyelids drooping low 
While each star at twilight twinkles 
In the sunset's after-glow. 

Bags of happy dreams he carries 

For good little boys and girls, 
And beside each cot he tarries, 

Smiling at the tangled curls. 
O'er the poor man's bed he 's bending 

Weary with his work, unblest, 
And into his visions sending 

Dreams of days of joy and rest. 

Kings, in vain the offer making, 
Try to buy his gifts with gold. 

Tossing on their beds and waking. 
While the long, long night grows old. 



Song of the Sandman 89 

Many a rich man worn and weary, 
Glad the Sandman's price would pay 

While each dragging hour is dreary 
And slow comes the burdened day. 

But the precious sleep and dreaming — 

These are gifts no money buys ; 
Out of heaven the visions gleaming 

Come to peaceful, tired eyes. 
Sleep, my children, he is coming 

With his team of nightmares gray, 
I can hear him softly humming 

Driving down the starlit way. 



Mating Song 



DARLING, darling, darling, darling!" 
So I heard a song-bird call ; 
Perk of head and flirt of feathers 

Flashed he on from barn to wall. 
Did she hear — the mate he sung to — 
As the leaf-hid bough she clung to? 

"Sweet one, sweet one, sweet one, sweet one ! 

Still rang out the coaxing cry. 
How his little throat was swelling 

With the gurgling ecstasy ! 
Did she care — the mate he sung to — 
As the leaf-hid bough she clung to? 

"Precious, precious, precious, precious!" 

Rang the lilting, sweet refrain ; 
It was woven all of passion. 

Threads of joy and threads of pain. 
Did she listen — she he sung to — 
As the leaf-hid bough she clung to? 
90 



Mating Song 91 

** Dainty, dainty, dainty, dainty!" 
So ran on the fond, fond note ; 

Oh, it seemed a human lover's 
Cry that filled his trembling throat. 

Did she answer — she he sung to — 

As the leaf -hid bough she clung to? 

*' Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely!" 

And her coquetry was o'er; 
Calling, answering, repeating, 

Wing to wing they sing and soar. 
Far down in the forest glade 
Hie they to the nest he 's made. 



The Plea of the Mountains 

O CHILDREN of the mountains 
Can you not hear our plea? 
We send you rushing rivers, 

Great highways to the sea ; 
With homes we crown your meadows, 

Of us your strength is born, 
We whirl your million spindles, 
We fill your vales with corn ! 

Ours are the golden fountains, 

The sources of your wealth, 
The dream of Ponce de Leon, 

The springs of youth and health. 
Where artists, workers, poets, 

The city-wearied, come 
To breathe the balm and freedom 

Of Nature's restful home! 

And will ye dare despoil us 
Or pull our glory down, 
92 



The Plea of the Mountains 93 

Our shoulders tree-dismantle, 

Our hoary brows discrown, 
Till those who here have worshipped, 

Our lovers of old days. 
Bow down their heads in sorrow 

And leave our haunted ways? 

Is there not left within you 

The sense of beauty's charm? 
Have you no ears for hearing 

The pine-harp's wind-swept psalm? 
Have you no eyes for seeing 

What glads the poet's eyes. 
When through the glow of sunset 

The evening stars arise? 

Oh, if the souls within you 

Are dead to beauty's lore. 
Are you so avarice-blinded 

Ye cannot look before? 
Behold your rivers shrunken. 

Your farms and marts decayed, — 
God pity you when mourning 

The havoc ye have made! 

O people of New England, 
Town, village, hill and plain, 

Your birth-right will ye barter 
And count the pottage gain? 



94 The Plea of the Mountains 

Spare ye our ancient glory 
And for the pilgrim feet 

Of your world-weary people 
Keep, keep this one retreat ! 



Carcassonne 

From the French of Gustave Nadaud. 

I'M sixty years; I 'm getting old; 
I 've been hard-working all my life, 
But yet could never grasp and hold 

My heart's one wish, with all my strife. 
I see now well that here below 

All one's desires are granted none; 
My dream will ne'er fulfilment know, 
I never have seen Carcassonne. 

From yonder hill one sees where lies 

The town beyond the mountains blue; 
But he to reach the place who tries 

Must five long leagues his way pursue. 
Then 't is as many to return : 

Oh had the vintage fairly done ! 
The grape crop's failure I must learn. 

So may not look on Carcassonne. 

95 



9^ Carcassonne 

They say that every day is there 

As Sunday is all through the week; 
New garments, robes all white and fair 

Perpetual holiday bespeak. 
A bishop and two generals go 

Through streets where, grand as Babylon, 
One sees the towering chateaux: 

I never shall know Carcassonne. 

A hundred times the vicar's right, 

For ever unadvised are we; 
Too high desires are still man's blight — 

He says so in his homily. 
Yet could I there two days have spent 

Ere quite the Autumn time was gone. 
My God! I would have died content 

When I had once seen Carcassonne. 

My God, my God, O pardon me, 

If this my prayer should Thee offend; 
Things still too high for us we 'd see 

In youth or near a long life's end. 
My wife once with my son, Aignan, 

As far has travelled as Narbonne, 
My grandson has seen Perpignan, 

And I have not seen Carcassonne. 

Thus did complain once, near Limaux, 
A peasant all bowed down with age. 



Carcassonne 97 

I said to him: "My friend, we '11 go 

Together on this pilgrimage." 
We started with the morning-tide; 

This God forgive ! We 'd scarcely gone 
The road half over, when he died : 

He never had seen Carcassonne. 

7 



Mary's Dream 

ONE night upon the Nazareth hills 
The stars were looking down ; 
And, white among the olives, slept 
The houses of the town. 

In one, the village carpenter — 
His work done — lay at rest ; 

And Mary, restless in her sleep, 
Her babe clasped to her breast. 

The stars had now begun to pale 
When, startled by her fears. 

Up Mary sprung and caught her child: 
Her eyes were wet with tears. 

And then she hugged him to her heart : 

* ' He is my Jesus still ! ' ' 
She cried: "Jehovah will forbid 

He should such dream fulfil! " 
98 



Mary's Dream 99 

Then Joseph started up afraid : 

"What words are these you speak? " 

"I 've had a dreadful dream," she cried, 
"And fear hath made me weak." 

And then she told him how she slept 

With Jesus on her arm ; 
And how a vision strange unrolled 

Its scenes of dread alarm. 

"I dreamed," she said, "and lo! a cross 

Stood outlined in the gloom ; 
Two others near; and, not far off, 

There yawned an open tomb. 

"Near by stood soldiers; laugh and oath 

Re-echoed on the air; 
Forms fled into the dark ; and, near. 

Some women stood in prayer. 

"I trembling crept anigh; one turned; 

'T was I stood in her place ! 
I looked awe-struck upon the cross ; 

My God! 't was my boy's face! 

"I thought I fainted: when I woke 

The scene had passed away. 
I started up and looked, and there 

My baby sleeping lay." 

L, d G. 



loo Mary's Dream 

"But once again I dreamed. I thought 
Long years had come and passed. 

In some strange city, people strange, — 
A concourse wild and vast. 

"And they disputed in a hall; 

They seemed both great and wise; 
One told me that it was about 

Some Jesus in the skies. 

** He told me that some of them said 

This Jesus was a man; 
Some said he was th' eternal God 

Who was ere time began. 

"And they had gathered here to see 
Which doctrine should prevail; 

And I, who knew one only God, 
Stood shuddering at the tale. 

"And while I stood, a cry arose, 

'He's God of very God ! 
Let those who dare to call him man 

Feel our great Emperor's rod ! ' 

"And then a persecution rose, 
And gray-haired men were sent 

For saying God could not be born, 
To lonely banishment. 



I 



Mary's Dream lor 



"I wondered much that men should thus 

Their worship high accord 
To one of woman born, and not 

To Israel's only Lord. 

**But sudden horror froze me quite; 

I hardly caught my breath, 
When some one told me this new god 

Was born in Nazareth, — 

"Was Jesus, Mary's son." Once more 

I woke in strange affright. 
O Joseph, what strange things are these 

That come to me this night? 



**And then I slept once more: once more 

The dreadful vision came. 
I tremble still: the blow! the cries! 

The scenes I cannot name ! 

*"T was in a city far away. 

Wild, brutal cries arose : 
The people seemed akin ; and yet 

They fought as fiercest foes. 

"The streets ran blood; oaths rent the air; 

And oh, one awful sight 
Still seems so real that my eyes 

Still see it with affright. 



I02 Mary's Dream 

"A noble, old and gray-haired man 

Was flung into the street 
From some high window, and his form 

Was tramped by horses' feet. 

"'T was some saint's day, then I was told; 

They slew for love of one, — 
My little babe, I found it was, — 

Declared to be God's son. 

"They said he 'd come in wondrous wise 
Down from the heavens above. 

To teach mankind to be at peace, 
And lead a life of love. 

"And then, far off, I heard a chant, 

Te Deiim high and grand, 
Because so much of brother's blood 

Had flowed throughout the land. 

"And then I cried: 'What have I done? 

Is this my babe to be 
Jehovah's scourge to bring to man 

Such wrath and misery ? ' 

"For in the name of him they called 

The prince of peace and joy 
They 've turned to brutal beasts ! Alas ! 

What art thou, my strange boy? 



Mary's Dream 103 

'*The horror woke me. But again 

I slept and dreamed once more. 
I seemed to wander, as with wings, 

A new and wide world o'er. 

"I saw strange countries, peoples strange; 

And everywhere on high, 
From churches scattered far and wide, 

Spires lifted to the sky. 

"The books, the creeds, the preachers said 

My little boy, when grown, 
Had risen to the heavens and sat 

Upon th' Eternal's throne — 

"They said he taught that only love,— 
Not words, nor forms— could save; 

That he was Christian who his life 
To men in service gave. 

"And yet, alas !— the strange, strange world !— 

They envied, hated, strove; 
And then, with hollow ritual, thought 

To pay the price of love. 

"Above the temple's gateway, made 

For those who entrance sought, 
They had erased my boy's word, Love— 

Which only he had taught— 



I04 Mary's Dream 

"And, in its place, had written high, 

In words to all men clear. 
Through robes and rites and creeds alone 

Can lost men enter here ! 

"So then I found that brave men stayed 

Without for love of him 
Whose glory they who claimed his name 

Had hidden, or made dim. 

"I wept to see men strayed so far 
From Him whom we confess; 

Who, Moses and Isaiah taught. 
Is love and righteousness. 

"I wept to think my winsome babe 

Had such an idol grown ; 
And wondered if God's wrath had placed 

A man upon His throne. 

"And weeping, I awaked and saw 
My boy look up with fright. 

As wondering at his mother's tears 
On such a quiet night. 

"O Joseph, what can mean my dream? 

My pretty boy ! Your play, 
Now that the sun is on the hills. 

Shall drive my fears away! " 



Mary's Dream 105 

Then Joseph soothed her with his words; 

But wondered if there might 
Be some strange meaning hid within 

These fancies of the night. 

And that day o'er his work he paused, 

And to himself he said, 
"Do dreams come to us from the Lord 

To warn us what to dread? " 

And from that day he watched the boy. 
Hence sprung his fear and awe 

When Jesus in the Temple courts 
Disputed of the law. 

And when to him the stories came 

Of Jordan and of John, 
He cried: "Woe *s me, the boding dreamt 

The vision hasteth on ! " 



Alas! the world has dreamed this dream! 

And only now the sun 
Begins to touch the eastern hills ; 

The dawning is begun. 

The wondrous boy is ours once more; 

No god, but just a boy; 
A boy, a youth, a man, whose love 

Foretells the future's joy. 



io6 Mary's Dream 

For he, the blossom fair, the fruit 
Sprung from our human tree, 

Becometh thus a prophecy 
Of what the world shall be. 

For he was human ; and since man 
Such fruit for once could bear, 

The future's harvest-field shall see 
Such fruitage everywhere. 



Seeking Jesus 



THEY 'VE ta'en away my Lord, and laid 
him, — where? 
I knew not, and I sought him far and wide, 
Till, as when sickly grows the misty air 

When into sad eclipse the sun doth glide. 
So dark and heavy pressed the atmosphere 
Which my soul breathed ; and it seemed all in 
vain 
To follow still the aimless, hopeless chase. 
Then all the earth grew drear ; 
And I cried out of my heart's heavy pain, 
**0 Truth divine, unveil thy lovely face! " 

I sought him in the old and musty creeds. 
Where wise men claimed that long he had 
been kept ; 
But what they said were flowers to me were 
weeds. 
And weeds so dried that through them all 
there crept 

107 



io8 Seeking Jesus 

The odors of decay that smelt of death ! 

** Where is the life of God they promised me? " 

I asked, bewildered, as in vain I sought. 
There was no living breath 
To thrill and lift my soul, O God, to Thee, 

No fresh life from Thy kindled altar brought ! 



Then crept I through cathedral aisles, where 
dim 
The natural light of this world's modern day 
Was sifted through the figured seraphim 

And colored saints in faint, distorted ray; 
But him I sought was nowhere to be found. 
He walked the sunny fields and dusty roads 
With common folk in all their common ways. 
So then I turned me round. 
And hastened out to find men's poor abodes. 
While on my ear faint grew the hymns of 
praise. 

Then down the pathway of the years I trod, 
Oft lighted by the fires of pious hate. 

And saw how men for love (they said) of God 
Had made their fellows' lives love-desolate. 

I passed old dungeons haunted still by cries 

That long since sunk in silence, by the places 
Where had been torture-chambers long ago. 
I saw the withered lies 



Seeking Jesus 109 

That men, who sought for truth with eager 
faces, 
Had hungered for and starved on in their 
woe. 



Then cried I : " Truth for men must human be ; 

And, being human, 't will be most divine. 
It must be that which looses and sets free, 

It must be that which thrills the weak, like 
wine. 
It must be that which kindles human love. 
And lifts the weak with helpful tenderness, 

And beats down barriers that separate! 
'T is not the hawk : the dove. 
The dove 's the symbol of the truths that bless, 

And not red talons pitiless with hate." 

And, lo ! as thus I thought and pondered far, 

I heard soft voices singing on the air; 
Then noted I where led a shining star. 

That o'er a manger softly shone and fair. 
I followed ; but no miracle I saw. 
No infant god, no kneeling kings at hand. 

But just a baby in its mother's arms! 
God's sweet, inviolate law. 
The law of love we partly understand, 

Had crowned just motherhood with holy 
charms. 



no Seeking Jesus 

The babe, grown up to manhood's fair estate, 

I saw along the wayside, by the hill, 
Or on the lake-shore, where the peoples wait 

His words that, like sweet bread, their hun- 
ger fill. 
I saw him pity all the sad and weak, 
I saw him from the proud ones turn aside, 

I saw him lift the fallen. All his plan 
Seemed but in love to seek 
To raise the low and humble cruel pride, 

And build on earth a brotherhood of man. 

Then all the truth broke on my weary heart ! 

I 'd sought but sought all vainly until then ; 
But now hope came that will not more depart — 

The hope that is the life of living men. 
The Jesus I had lost was man's ideal. 
The more divine for being just a man, 

Man at his highest, so for man the best. 
In this is God made real, — 
God leading, lifting since the world began. 

And to our restless search revealing rest ! 



Resurgam 



O WONDROUS race of dying men! 
In every age, in every clime, 
Above all graves rings out sublime 
Resurgam — I shall rise again ! 

Not one of all whoe'er drew breath 

Has e'er escaped: whence then up-springs 
The hope that in defeat still sings 

Resurgam — I shall rise from death? 



From out the shadow that o'er hangs 
The far-off childhood of the earth, 

Beside the first dead face I hear 

The whispered trust that death is birth. 

The solemn lips of India old 
Catch up and echo on the tale 

That they who walk the earth no more 
Have only passed within the veil. 
Ill 



112 Resurgam 

The stately pomp of Egypt's priests, 

Their prayers, their chants, papyrus rolls 

Rehearse the faith that counts the grave 
But gateway to the land of souls. 

Mithraic symbols and the cult 

Of mystic lore Eleusis taught 
Were but the dress to clothe and hide 

From eyes profane the sacred thought. 

The Greek to shapes of beauty wrought 
The same fair trust ; and gave to men 

Her marble witness that the dead 
Should walk and live and love again. 

Rome, too, her testimony clear 
To this most human longing gave; 

While priestly rite and poet's verse 
A triumph chanted o'er the grave. 

And when the man of Nazareth 
In sweet words told the story o'er, 

Not new the tale; he but retold 

The dear hope men had loved before. 

For God, in nature's mystic book 
Has writ the promise on each flower, 

Each leaf, each simple blade of grass 
That greets Spring's resurrection hour. 



Resurgam 113 

The glad birds sing it ; and the brooks 
Run babbling life's unending song; 

While each dawn's triumph o'er the dark 
Proclaims right's triumph over wrong. 

Take up the song then, Oh, my heart, 
And, fearless facing every doubt. 

Join nature's and the ages' chant, 
And ring the gladsome chorus out! 

Life, life was first, and builds the form; 

The form was not, the form is gone; 
But life, that thrilled the dust awhile. 

Nor faints nor falters, but goes on! 



Yes, on this Easter day, O men, 
Men dying, but defying death. 
Heed what reviving nature saith, — 

Resurgam — I shall rise again ! 

Nay, in the grave no soul e'er lies: 
Not rise again declares the voice ; 
The deeper truth proclaims. Rejoice^ 

Surgam, not re — / shall arise I 



Shine Forth, O Truth ! 



SHINE forth, O Truth, with thine all-con- 
quering ray ; 

Let there be light ! 
Night long has reigned ; at last there dawns 
the day ; 

Let there be light ! 
Through weary years, since first dim Time 

begun, 
Our feet have stumbled, waiting for the sun. 

Shine forth, O Truth, our eyes salute the 
dawn ; 

Let day appear! 
How slow it seems the dark clouds are with- 
drawn, 

Let day appear ! 
The waking peoples, from sleep roused at 

length, 
Thrill with the consciousness of unused 



strength. 



114 



Shine Forth, O Truth! 115 

Lead on, O Truth, the way is far to go, 

O Truth, lead on ! 
All truth, all life, all good are ours to know, 

O Truth, lead on! 
Lo, gleam before us there the shining gates, 
And for our taking all God's glory waits! 



Mad 



onna 



RARE Madonna, Sanzio's dream, 
Maid through motherhood grown wise ! 
Mystic meanings glimpse and gleam, 
Lightening, darkening, in thine eyes! 

But the meanings, mystic, rare, 

In thy tender eyes sublime. 
That this artist's dreams declare, 

Mothers feel in every clime ! 

For, O Sistine mother, thou 

Hast in many ages stood, 
And must stand, while all men bow, 

Type ideal of motherhood ! 

Let me read then in thy face 

What I may of wonder-lore, 
While I worship woman's grace, 

While I motherhood adore. 

ii6 



Madonna 117 

First, the mother's joy I see, 

Trembling, tender, passionate; 
^^He is mine ! " exultantly 

All her face cries out elate ! 

Then, the reverent surprise 

That such gift should come to her 

Deepens in the awe-struck eyes — 
Mother lost in worshipper! 

Next, the far-off look that seems 

As, — ^^'twixt hope and fear at strife, — 

It would probe, through facts and dreams, 
All the mystery of life ! 

Then, as though the coming years 
With their shadows crossed her sight. 

Seem to stir the founts of tears. 

Thrill her arms with clasp more tight. 

Mother hope, and mother fear, 
Mother grief, and mother joy — 

All alike to thee are dear 

While thou holdest thus thy boy ! 

Seek not thou the years to read 

Stretching onward far away ; 
Only give thou grateful heed 

To the blessed, glad to-day! 



ii8 Madonna 

Fear not what shall be his lot, 
Crown or care, or bloom or light ; 

He who gave, forgetteth not, 
And each life shall end in light ! 



T 



" You Did It Not " 

HERE comes an hour of sadness 

With the setting of the sun, 
For, not the sins committed. 
But the things I have not done. 

I ought to have been stronger. 
But the crisis found me weak, 

And now I am regretting 
The word I did not speak. 

A cause, a neighbor languished ; 

And now, while still I live, 
I must regret forever 

The help I did not give. 

I see an arm outreaching. 
And vain its empty grasp, 

And I must still remember 
The hand I did not clasp. 
119 



I20 **You Did It Not" 

I saw beside life's highway 
A hopeless outcast lie, 

I might, but did not comfort, 
The fallen I passed by. 

A great cause, lacking helpers, 
Was weak because unheard, 

I might have been its champion, 
But did not say the word. 

Attacked by stupid malice 
I heard a man maligned, 

I stood in coward silence 

And did not speak my mind. 

And so as night is falling 

How bitterly I rue 
The words I have not spoken. 

The deeds I did not do. 



The Shadow 

RETRIBUTION 

IN a bleak land and desolate 
Beyond the earth, somewhere 
Went wandering through death's dark gate 
A soul into the air. 

And still as on and on it fled 

A wild, waste region through, 
Behind there fell the steady tread 

Of one that did pursue. 

At last it paused and looked aback; 

And then he was aware 
A hideous wretch stood in his track 

Deformed and cowering there. 

''And who art thou," he shrieked with fright, 

''That dost my steps pursue? 
Go hide thy shapeless shape from sight, 

Nor thus pollute my view! " 

The foul form answered him: "Alway 

Along thy path I flee. 
/ ' ni tJiine own actions : night mid day 

Still must I follow thee.''' 

121 



Buddha s Parable 



WITH fixed, white face the mother goes 
With her dead child at her breast. 
In the house where no one has ever died 
She will find relief and rest. 
**0 tell me! where is the place 
That has ne'er seen a dead, white face? " 

From village to village, from town to town 

She wanders the country o'er; 
At her asking ever the tears fall down ; 
Death has passed thro' every door. 
"O tell me! is there no place 
That has ne'er seen a dead, white face? " 

"No place, no place, my child," said then 

A white-haired man and old ; 
"The living are few to the numbers vast 
The earth in her dead arms hold." 
"But is there never a place 
That has ne'er seen a dead, white face? " 



Buddha's Parable 123 

**Yes, child," the old man said at last, 

"There is one place we trust, 
But only they find it who have passed 
Through the gateway of the dust. 
Sleep, then, my child: thy face 
Sees the land where death has no place." 



The Mystic Hope 

WHAT is this mystic, wondrous hope in 
me, 
When not one star from out the darkness 

born 
Gives promise of the coming of the morn : — 
When all life seems a pathless mystery 
Through which the weary eyes no way can 
see: — 
When illness comes and life grows most for- 
lorn, 
Still dares to laugh the last dread threat to 

scorn, 
And proudly cries, Death is not, shall not be f 

I wonder at myself! Tell me, O Death, 
If thou dost rule the earth, if ''dust to dust" 
Shall be the end of love and hope and 
strife, 
From what rare land is blown this living 
breath 
That shapes itself to whispers of strong trust 
And tells the lie — if 7 is a lie — of life? 



124 



Love Eternal 

TH E flowers in clusters grow ; 
Star constellations glow; 
Each always seeks it own ; 
Nothing is blest alone. 

Life's paradox is this : 
To share increases bliss, 
While grief shared grows to less. 
Such power has love to bless ! 

So heart is bound to heart, 
And Death alone can part. 
Can Death part? No, above 
E'en Death is mighty Love. 



125 



I Haste No More 

I haste no more. 
At dawn or when the day is done, 

The sun comes calmly to his place: — 
I 've learned the lesson of the sun. 

I haste no more. 
In Spring and Autumn earth decrees 

The leaves shall bud, the leaves shall fall 
I 've learned the lesson of the trees. 

I haste no more. 
At flood or ebb, as it may be. 

The ocean answers to the moon : — 
I 've learned the lesson of the sea. 

I haste no more. 
Whate'er, whoe'er is mine — these must 

On God's ways meet me in God's time: 
I 've learned the lesson, and I trust. 



126 



" Ad Astra " 

LOOK on and upward, as you go, 
With faith no doubting mars; 
And know that still life's commonplace 
Is overarched with stars. 

Hold one conviction with a trust 
No shock of question jars, — 

That every path of duty trod 
Leads upward to the stars. 

Repine not as if earthly bonds 

Were but life's prison bars: 
Our common earth of dust and tears 

Is one among the stars I 



127 



Hymn 



Dedication New Unitarian Church, Cleveland, Ohio 

IN every land, 'neath every sky, 
All men have found some holy place 
Where they have piled their altars high 
To give Thee praise, to seek Thy grace. 

We here have built this house to Thee 
Of stone and wood which all were Thine, 

And now we pray that it may be 

Our worship's home, Thy sacred shrine. 

With thought set free, with reverent mind, 
World-weary age and eager youth, 

By doubt and faith we seek to find 

The way of life, through love and truth. 

We give to Thee what is Thine own— 

Our time, our thought, our hearts, our gold. 

Within our lives set up Thy throne, 
Before our march Thy flag unfold. 

128 



Hymn 129 

Here love the holy words shall speak 
Which bind in one the hearts of two : 

Here parents for their children seek 
The touch that may their lives renew. 

Here shall we bring the sacred dead 
Before the earth goes back to earth ; 

Here shall transforming words be said 
Which hold the truth that death is birth. 

The house indeed we consecrate; 

But this alone is vanity : 
To gain the good for which we wait, 

Behold we give ourselves to Thee ! 



Morning 



A BRISK, fresh morning after storm ! 
Night's misty headlands stand out clear 
Each yesterday's far-distant form 
The morn reveals distinct and near. 

The million ripples in the sun 
Laugh like the dimples of a girl : 

The light waves with the light winds run, 
And crease the sands with curve and curl ! 

Light dominates the world once more, 
Light, which the darkness fights in vain ! 

For every storm the bow spans o'er. 
And ever sunshine follows rain ! 

No mist or darkness can avail 

To hide, for long, what they conceal ; 

The light's supreme ! — this cheery tale 
The morning's sunbeams aye reveal! 

Beneath the sunshine of this hope — 

That light and truth the world control — 

As buds their trusting petals ope. 
Expand and lift thee, O my soul ! 
130 



The Christmas Search 

As upward into clearer light 
The toiling old world swings, 
What is it each new Christmas tide 
A little nearer brings? 

Beneath the magic touch of man, 

Though wilderness at first, 
The desert continents have smiled, 

And into flower burst ! 

Beneath his touch, wild grasses bent 
With heavy heads of grain ; 

And orchards rich with golden fruits 
O'erran each mellow plain! 

Beneath his touch, wild things of air 
And earth have ceased to kill, 

While, crouching at his feet, they learn 
To love and do his will. 

Beneath his touch, the ocean wastes, 
Crossed by his couriers fleet. 

With pleasure and with traffic grow 
Familiar as the street. 
131 



132 The Christmas Search 

Beneath his touch, towns, cities, rise; 

A thousand factories whir; 
The forces of the air and earth 

Each turns his minister ! 

Beneath his touch, the Titan, steam, 
Held in with curb and rein, 

His god-like chariot drags afar, 
Through mountain, over plain! 

Beneath his touch, the lightnings stoop 
To take his dread command ; 

Then over wastes, or under seas, 
Quick flash from land to land ! 

Beneath his touch, the high stars deign 

To guide his ships aright ; 
Beneath his touch, electric suns 

Flash daylight through the night! 

At first a weakling, now a king 
The son of man has grown ; 

King of the earth, king of himself, 
His steps have climbed a throne! 

But as up into clearer light 
The toiling old world swings. 

What is it each new Christmas tide 
A little nearer brings? 



The Christmas Search 133 

Not only better homes man needs, 

Command of air and earth, 
Fleet travel, power to ring the world 

With his electric girth ! 

Aladdin's lamp is not enough. 
Though this be won at length ; 

God's Kingdom cometh not alone 
By wisdom or by strength ! 

The dying out of hate and fear. 
The growth of love and trust, 

These crown him Son of God, and prove 
That life is more than dust ! 

'T is justice, mercy, kindness, help, 

A human brotherhood 
We seek; not only reign of power, 

But kingship of the good ! 

This, then, as into clearer light 

The toiling old world swings. 
We '11 seek until some Christmastide 

The perfect morning brings ! 



Easter Longings 

WHAT are our Easter longings? 
When Winter storms have fled, 
We long for earth's fresh greenness, 
And bluer skies o'erhead. 

We long to hear the ripple 

Of streamlets as they flow, 
Released from icy fetters 

And bondage of the snow. 

We long for Spring's first flowers 
That, with their old-time grace 

Unchanged since we were children. 
Still show the same fair face. 

We long to hear the bird-songs 
That on, from Spring to Spring, 

The memories of the lost years 
Still to the present bring. 

We long to hear the wave-break, 
That on the changing shore 

Still chants its restful message, 
Unchanged forevermore. 
134 



Easter Longings 135 

We long to see earth rising 
From its long deathlike sleep, 

While life and its fresh vigor 
Through all her members creep. 

But all this earth-awakening 

But makes us, misty-eyed. 
Dream all the more of lost ones 

No longer at our side. 

They loved the Spring's fair coming; 

Oh, why are they not here. 
To double by their sharing 

The joy of this new year? 

What land so fair can keep them? 

Love they not as of old? 
Is there a chill in dying 

To make affection cold? 

We long to hear a whisper 

To tell us that they care : 
One word might make the Spring-time 

A thousand fold more fair. 

'T is some heart that in childhood 

Was nearest to our own, 
Whose going made life's pathway, 

Though crowded, all so lone — 



136 Easter Longings 

It is the old home broken 
That fancy builds, till seem 

The old things like the real, 
And real things a dream. 

Or, 't is a loss more recent. 
Too sacred yet for speech, — 

That which made life worth living 
Now passed beyond our reach. 

It is our own life fading 
As we are growing old, — 

The fair, sweet day declining 
To evening chill and cold. 

Oh, how the years relentless 
Our treasures snatch and keep, 

While fairest Springs are helpless 
To rouse them from their sleep : 

So while the joyous Easter 
Lifts high her song of praise 

Our hearts will ache with longing 
For friends of other days. 

O wondrous is the process 
By which, from fire-mist old, 

The scroll of earth's strange meanings 
The ages have unrolled ! 



Easter Longings i37 

From lowly forms uplifting, 

Swept on the mighty plan, 
Till, from earth's life-tree bursting. 

Out-buds and blossoms man. 

The earth and skies have cradled 

This child of dust and God, 
Till brain, heart, soul cry, — "See us! 

Are we no more than clod?" 

Nay, nay, look up and onward, 
And clasp and hold the trust 

That all this wondrous process 
Shall end not in the dust. 

The grave is but a gateway, 

Low-arched and dark, 't is true! 

But hark ! I hear a whisper ! 

And lo ! the light bursts through ! 

Then sing the song of Easter; 

Let no heart troubled be : 
The past is as the future, — 

All, one eternity ! 

The lost youth and the lost love — 

Nay, naught is lost but ill: 
Each golden dream and promise 

The ages shall fulfil ! 



138 Easter Longings 

Then drink the joy of Easter 
From brimming, flowing cup ; 

Let tears be changed to smiling 
While we look on and up ! 



To Truth 

OSTAR of Truth, down shining 
Through clouds of doubt and fear, 
I ask but 'neath your guidance 

My pathway may appear: 
However long the journey, 

How hard soe'er it be. 
Though I be lone and weary, 
Lead on, I '11 follow thee! 

I know thy blessed radiance 

Can never lead astray, 
However ancient custom 

May tread some other way : 
E'en if through untrod deserts, 

Or over trackless sea, 
Though I be lone and weary. 

Lead on, I '11 follow thee! 

The bleeding feet of martyrs 
Thy toilsome road have trod ; 

But fires of human passion 
May light the way to God. 
139 



I40 To Truth 

Then, though my feet should falter, 
While I thy beams can see. 

Though I be lone and weary, 
Lead on, I '11 follow thee! 

Though loving friends forsake me 

Or plead with me in tears, 
Though angry foes may threaten, 

To shake my soul with fears. 
Still to my high allegiance 

I must not faithless be : 
Through life or death, forever 

Lead on, I '11 follow thee! 



Prayer 



HERE on this little world, 
Through cloud and sunshine whirled 
Athwart the sky, 
We look out on the light, 
We look up through the night. 
And wonder if God's might 
May hear our cry. 

Is all a heartless void. 

Worlds made and worlds destroyed, 

With none to care? 
Or somewhere in the deep 
Is One who does not sleep, 
But wakes to watch and keep, 

And note our prayer? 

We trust no joy or pain 
Is ever felt in vain, — 

That not one cry 
Dies on the empty air; 
No human heart's despair 
Shall miss the loving care 

That rules on high. 



141 



Evolution 

THE one life thrilled the star-dust through, 
In nebulous masses whirled, 
Until, globed like a drop of dew, 
Shone out a new-made world. 

The one life on the ocean shore. 

Through primal ooze and slime, 
Crept slowly on from less to more 

Along the ways of time. 

The one life in the jungles old. 

From lowly, creeping things, 
Did ever some new form unfold, — 

Swift feet or soaring wings. 

The one life all the ages through 

Pursued its wondrous plan, 
Till, as the tree of promise grew. 

It blossomed into man. 

The one life reacheth onward still: 

As yet no eye may see 
The far-off fact man's dream fulfil, — 

The glory yet to be. 



142 



The American Song 

WHAT song shall America sing, 
Young heir of the elder world, 
Whose knee ne'er bent to a tyrant king, 

Whose banner defeat ne'er furled? 
A song for the brave and the free. 

No echo of ancient rhyme. 
But a shout of hope for the day to be, 
The light of the coming time! 

From the dark lowlands of the past, 

Swelling loud o'er the victim's cries. 
The hero's shout sweeps up the blast. 

Where wounded Freedom dies. 
The drum's dull beat and the trumpet's blare 

From the far-off years are heard ; 
But the paean of kings is man's despair, 

And the hope of the world deferred. 

'T is the song of the free we sing. 

Of a good time not yet born. 
Where each man of himself is king; 

Of a day whose gladsome morn 
143 



144 The American Song 

Shall see the earth beneath our feet 

And a fair sky overhead ; 
When those now sad shall find life sweet. 

And none shall hunger for bread. 

Sing, then, our American song: 

'T is no boast of triumphs won 
At the price of another's wrong 

Or of foul deeds foully done. 
We fight for the wide world's right, 

To enlarge life's scope and plan, 
To flood the earth with hope and light, 

To build the kingdom of man. 



My Birth 



1HAD my birth where stars were born, 
In the dim aeons of the past: 
My cradle cosmic forces rocked, 
And to my first was linked my last. 

Through boundless space the shuttle flew, 
To weave the warp and woof of fate : 

In my begetting were conjoined 
The infinitely small and great. 

The outmost star on being's rim, 
The tiniest sand-grain of the earth, 

The farthest thrill and nearest stir 
Were not indifferent to my birth. 

And when at last the earth swung free, 

A little planet by the moon. 
For me the continent arose, 

For me the ocean roared its tune ; 

For me the forests grew ; for me 
Th' electric force ran to and fro ; 

For me tribes wandered o'er the earth, 
Kingdoms arose, and cities grew ; 

lO 

145 



146 My Birth 

For me religions waxed and waned ; 

For me the ages garnered store ; 
For me ships traversed every sea ; 

For me the wise ones learned their lore ; 

For me, through fire and blood and tears, 
Man struggled onward up the height, 

On which, at last, from heaven falls 
An ever clearer, broader light. 

The child of all the ages, I, 

Nursed on th' exhaustless breasts of time; 
By heroes thrilled, by sages taught. 

Sung to by bards of every clime. 

Quintessence of the universe. 

Distilled at last from God's own heart, 

In me concentred now abides 
Of all that is the subtlest part. 

The product of the ages past. 

Heir of the future then, am I: 
So much am I divine that God 

Cannot afford to let me die. 

If I should ever cease to be, 

The farthest star its mate would miss, 
And, looking after me, would fall 

Down headlong darkening to th' abyss. 



My Birth 147 

For, if aught real that is could cease, 

If the All-Father ever nods, 
That day across the heavens would fall 

Ragnarok, twilight of the gods. 



The Forbidden Song 

TIS said, in old Granada, 
Then held in captive bands, 
Enslaved in their own city, 
Held down by foreign hands, 

When once, in accents plaintive, 

The old songs rose in air. 
The people from their houses 

Rushed out in mad despair. 

The songs brought back the freedom 
Once theirs in days of yore, — 

A freedom only sleeping, 

Though now enjoyed no more. 

Then passed a law these tyrants. 
Who feared a singer's breath, 

That none might sing forever 
That song, on pain of death. 

So human souls, fast fettered 
By custom old and creed, 

Are only drugged and sleeping, 
And waiting to be freed; 

148 



The Forbidden Song 149 

And, when the song of freedom 
Some bold voice grandly sings, 

They feel within them stirring 
Their long unused wings. 

A far-off recollection 

Of birthrights lost arise, 
Of that diviner sonship 

Which links them with the skies. 

So, lest the priesthood totter. 
And souls their freedom gain, 

This song divine 's forbidden. 
On threat of endless pain. 



The House of the Soul 

MY soul still sitteth her room within ; 
She goeth not out of her door: 
But she longs forever to know the world 
As it passes her house before. 

She may not go out. The universe knocks, 
And throngs all her anterooms fill; 

But the Senses Five stand ever on guard, 
Admitting but whom they will. 

The ear leads in the wonderful sounds 

That wander her echo hall, — 
The thunder, the bird-song, the wild surf-beat. 

And the voices of love that call. 

The eye leads in the colors that glow 

In the rainbow and sunset sky; 
The apple-blooms and the tinting of cheeks, 

And love-looks that never die. 

And the touch and taste and smell, each one 
Seeks out the guests that it knows ; 

But only now and then one of the throng 
To the high, inner chamber goes. 
150 



The House of the Soul 151 

And so my soul sitteth her house within, 
While the universe passes without ; 

Of the thronging shapes she catches a glimpse, 
Or hears a far-echoing shout. 

She waits and listens, and ever she longs 
To see all things real, as they are ; 

But the doors of her house are thick and strong. 
And fastened with life's firm bar. 

She knows there are voices she never hears. 

And colors she never sees; 
She knows that the world has numberless doors 

Of which she has not the keys. 

She fears she knows nothing as it is, 

But shadows and echoes only; 
So up and down through her rooms she goes, 

Wistfully longing and lonely. 

And she cries: "Shall I never know the world 

That passes so near to my door? 
Shall I never find out the things to be. 

Or the things that were of yore? 

"Shall I never thrust back the wards that lock 

The innermost heart of things? 
Shall I never break down my narrow walls 

Or expand my prisoned wings? 



152 The House of the Soul 

"Perhaps — who knows? — I may fly one day, 
And, alight on some fairer star, 

Where shadows are only mists of the past 
I may see things as they are." 



T 



Life's Wonder 

IS "vanity of vanities" : thus said 
The Preacher, in the ages long since 
dead. 



And ** vanity of vanities," the cry 
Rings on the air of every century. 

The worldling, pleasure-worn, toil-wearied, 

asks, 
"Is life worth living," with its weary tasks? 

Religion, with her faithless moan, appears, 
And says, "The world is but a vale of tears." 

"Of fools and blind!" the wonder-feast to 

spite, 
Whose own wild folly 's dulled your appetite ! 

A blind man through a wondrous picture hall 
Went muttering about each "empty wall." 

A deaf man, when a symphony was sung, 
Much marvelled at each mute and voiceless 
tongue. 

153 



154 Life's Wonder 

And one, whose sense of smell was lost, de- 
plored 
Their folly who the odorous rose adored. 

And one, heart-shrivelled by his heartless loves, 
Mocked at young lovers and at cooing doves. 

And one, who talked of solid facts, oft smiled 
At those by poetry and art beguiled. 

**0 fools and blind!" The farmer wonders 

why 
The scholar studies, with admiring eye, 

The tiny scratches on the boulder's top, 
Whose huge obstruction only hurts his crop. 

Meanwhile, the scholar in the boulder sees 
The wondrous story of lost centuries. 

The stolid Arab, under desert skies. 
Sees where afar the Pyramids arise ; 

But on their rocky, weather-beaten page. 
Reads not the strange tale of a buried age. 

The peasant by the Swiss lakes sees not there 
The pile-raised village lift itself in air. 

And bones and arrow-heads are rubbish all 
To him who hears no far-off ages call, 



Life's Wonder 155 

From out the silence of the past, to say, 
*'We were the fathers of your glad to-day." 

Oh, wonder of the world, whose surface bright 
Fills wide-eyed childhood with a fresh delight ! 

Beneath the surface, to exploring eyes, 
Deep yawns to deep, and heights on heights 
arise. 

Each grass-blade and each gaseous atom holds 
An infinite mystery, that his thought unfolds 

Who knows each molecule the kinsman is 
Of every star-ray piercing the abyss. 

And not one lowly blossom in the vale 
But to the instructed ear can tell a tale, 

Whose opening chapter was the eternal past, 
And is not done while endless ages last. 

Short is his fathom-line who thinks he sounds — 
And finds it shallow — being's dread profounds. 

The emptiness is in the pool that lies 

Too shoal to hold the stars and boundless skies. 



Oh, when I look upon the laughing face 
Of children, or on woman's gentle grace; 



156 Life's Wonder 

Or when I grasp a true friend by the hand, 
And feel a bond I partly understand ; 

When mountains thrill me, or when by the sea 
The plaintive waves rehearse their mystery, 

Or when I watch the moon with strange de- 
light, 
Treading her pathway 'mid the stars at night ; 

Or when the one I love, with kisses prest, 
I clasp with bliss unspoken to my breast, — 

So strange, so deep, so wondrous life appears, 
I have no words, but only happy tears ! 

I cannot think it all shall end in naught; 
That the abyss shall be the grave of thought ; 

That e'er oblivion's shoreless sea shall roll 
O'er love and wonder and the lifeless soul. 

But, e'en though this the end, I cannot say 
I 'm sorry that I saw the light of day. 

So wondrous seems this life I live to me, 
Whate'er the end, to-day I hear and see ! 



Life's Wonder 157 

To-day I thi7ik and hope ! and so for this — 
If it must be — for just so much of bliss, — 

Bliss threaded through with pain, — I bless the 

Power 
That holds me up to gaze one wondrous hour ! 



Hidden Springs 

Up on the hillside, far away, 
There is a hidden spring 
That never sees the light of day, 
And where no bird doth sing. 

It darkly wells, 'mid rocks and moss. 

Lost in the thicket deep ; 
Above it, trailing creepers toss. 

And dripping dew-drops weep. 

But, down below, its waters run 
To feed the roots of flowers; 

Where bright birds glitter in the sun. 
And sing through happy hours. 

It makes a brook where children play ; 

It clothes the fields in grasses ; 
Its path is beauty all the way. 

As down the vale it passes. 

The mill-wheels hum along its side; 

It builds the busy town-, 
And deeply, in its glassy tide. 

The sweet stars look adown. 
158 



Hidden Springs 159 

How many noblest deeds of men 

Flow from the hidden springs, 
Shut all away from human ken, 

And kept as sacred things, — 

The grief-fed springs within the heart, 

All clouded o'er with doubt. 
Where death our treasures smote apart, 

And heahng tears gushed out ! 

The graves of loved ones far away, 

Up the dim track of years, 
Still nerve the purpose of to-day 

To rise above our fears. 

Oh ! many a tender word is said. 

And gentle deed is wrought, 
In memory of the cherished dead 

That live still in our thought. 

The orphans, that the mother love 

Of childless mothers saves. 
May thank the grief that bends above 

The newly sodded graves. 

And many a man, whose noble fight 

For truth has lifted men. 
Knows some dead loved one's deathless might 

His motive power has been. 



i6o Hidden Springs 

O tear-fed, hidden springs that well 
Up from the heart's great deep, 

The world its debt can never tell 
To those that work and weep, — 

That work out in the open day, 
That weep when none are nigh, 

And only by sweet deeds betray 
The heart's sad mystery. 



Motherhood 

O SWEET, delicious motherhood! 
I, even I, am part — 
I feel it next my heart — 
Of that strange power that worlds did brood, 
In which all life doth start. 

It is the mighty God, I know, 

Who thrills my being through,— 
He lives in star and dew — 

And, as June roses bud and blow, 
So bids me blossom too. 

Within my soul the sacred root 

Of this new life runs down, — 
Sweet love the seed hath sown — 

Thence upward grows and comes to fruit, 
And all my life doth crown. 

I am become creator then : 

God's secret I can guess, — 
O wondrous happiness! — 

I stand, the mother proud of men, 

That strong sons love and bless. 

II i6i 



i62 Motherhood 

Close at the universe's core, 

And out through all its range, — 
It rules life, death, and change— 

This secret lives forevermore, 

Sacred, divine, and strange. 

The soul that doth this burden miss, 
Unlinked in being's chain — 
It seeks a fancy vain — 

Shirking God's care, life's keenest bliss 
Loses, nor finds again. 

The cradle is God's purest shrine: 
At this fair fount of life, — 
Hush here, O world, your strife !- 

Bow with veiled eyes, and call divine 
The mother crowned as wife. 



One Left 

THE one babe lost is the one babe left; 
The others are grown and gone away; 
So cruel it seemed when first bereft, 

Yet the lost is the only one left to-day ! 

I watched them grow out of my longing arms, 

While each in turn lost the baby face: 
The years fled away with those winsome 
charms, 
And manhood and womanhood took their 
place. 

And now they 've made them homes of their 
own. 

While I by the fireside rock and dream : 
And, oh, I should be so all alone, 

Did not the past like the present seem ! 

But, while I am rocking, my babe again. 
That I lost, far off in the dimming years, 

I clasp with the joy that is kin to pain. 
And water my dusty heart with tears. 



163 



The People 



OH, placable and patient race, 
Thy burden bearing through the years, 
How often marred with grief thy face, 
How oft thine eyes are dim with tears! 

How patient art thou with thy gods. 
Still framing for them some excuse. 

Bending thy back beneath their rods. 
And turning pain to noble use ! 

How patient art thou with thy kings 
That rob, and fatten on thy spoils ! 

While each new year new burdens brings. 
To bind thee to thy weary toils. 

Be patient still, and labor on ! 

Thy waiting is not all in vain ; 
For, see ! long hours of dark are gone, 

And, east, the night begins to wane. 

Science, man's mighty friend, has bound 
Nature's trained forces, foes no more: 

They stamp their hoofs, and at the sound 
Flies open every once barred door. 

164 



The People 165 

And through these doors man shall advance, 
And find free course o'er all the earth; 

No more the slave of circumstance, 
But rising to his kingly worth. 

He claims his birthright now, and reigns : 
The Titans that o'er chaos ruled, — 

Lightning and steam, — with giant pains, 
Now run his errands, trained and schooled. 

O People, once a mass, held down, 
The plaything of the priest and king, 

You yet shall come into your own, 
And to you earth her tribute bring. 

Dethroned, the gods of wrong and hate; 

Dethroned, the old-time kingly power; 
Dethroned, the priesthood's selfish state: 

Reason enthroned, then comes your hour! 

The spelling-book shall be the key 
To thrust back in the lock of fate 

The musty bolts of destiny. 

And bid you enter now, though late. 

But, on God's dial-plate of time, 
'T is never late for him who stands 

Self-centred in a trust sublime. 

With mastered force and thinking hands. 



1 66 The People 

The world then all before you lies : 

The stars fight for you ; and there waits 

A future where bold enterprise 

Flings open wide the long-shut gates. 



The Sea's Secret 

1SAT on the beach at twilight, 
And watched the rising moon, 
While on my ear the wavelets 
Beat out their soothing croon. 

The town-life, with its worry, 

Had faded to a dream : 
Life's toil had turned to fancy, 

And fancies real did seem. 

And so I watched the wavelets 

Fall at my feet in play, 
And let my dream-wings flutter 

Through dreamlands far away. 

The curling foam-flakes whispered 
How, tossing round the world, 

They 'd kissed a tropic island, 
As past it they were whirled. 

It was so fair, they told me, 

That, though they could not stay, 

None might forget the vision ; 
It haunted them alway. 
167 



1 68 The Sea's Secret 

**It is," they said, "this longing, 
That ne'er outworn may be. 

That makes us moan forever 
The secret of the sea." 

**What is this secret? Tell me." 
The murmurous answer fell: 

**We 've sought for one to listen, 
That we the tale might tell. 

"But none could understand us, 

So evermore in vain 
We sob in plaintive music 

That no man can explain." 

The while I sat and listened. 
The ripple on the beach 

Of white waves in the moonshine 
Became a silvery speech. 

"That island of our vision 

We saw so far away, 
We hoped that men might find it 

Some fair and happy day. 

"For we have heard men's sighing. 
And we have seen their tears, 

While up the weary ages 

They 've toiled along the years. 



The Sea's Secret 169 

**So when upon the ocean 

They launched their ships at last, 

We whispered, *We will lead them 
Where sorrow shall be past.* 

"For we had seen the island 

Uplift its palms in air, 
And known it for that Eden 

Where never comes despair. 

"So roimd their ships we rippled. 
And chased the winds at play. 

Still hoping we might bring them 
To that land far away. 

"But ever are we baffled: 
By adverse currents whirled. 

To other oceans drifting, 
Or on the breakers hurled, 

"We see the vain endeavor, 

We hear the hopeless cry. 
While still through fruitless labors 

They seek, find not, and die. 

"And yet each wave that shoreward 

Comes rippling up the bay 
Has seen the vision splendid, — 

That island far away. 



I70 The Sea's Secret 

**But still, with all our longing 
That men this rest may gain, 

Fate laughs at all our labor; 
And 'false, devouring main 

**Men call us, while so gladly 
We would a pathway be 

To lead them to this peaceful, 
Fair island of the sea. 

**But, 'stead of this, forever 
Where priceless treasures sleep, 

Fate whelms both ship and sailor 
Beneath the moaning deep. 

**This is the sea's sad secret, — 
That, do whatever we may, 

The goal of our endeavor 
Still lies so far away. 

***T is this, if men but knew it. 
That makes the sea's low moan 

In hours of weary longing. 
So answer to their own. 

'*One age-long, endless struggle. 
The unattained to gain, 

The ever onward reaching. 
And reaching still in vain, — 



The Sea's Secret 171 

**This is the heart's sad secret, 

Wherever men may be ; 
And this — the heart's deep echo, — 

The secret of the sea. 



The Cat-Bird 



THROUGH the night and through the day 
Runs a babbling brook away, 
'Neath the hill and to the river 
Through the pasture, on forever. 
Shadowy playmates still I see, 
Rivalling the brooklet's glee; 
And the cat-bird's voice I hear. 
That so piqued my childhood's ear. 
Saucy, mocking cat-bird 

On the alder spray, 
Even now I hear thee. 
Though so far away. 

Thou incarnate, wicked joy, 
How I watched thee as a boy, — 
Mocking with thy saucy call 
Robin, jay, kingfisher, all, — 
Picking up the varied notes 
As they fell from feathery throats, 
172 



The Cat-Bird 173 

Screeching as in demon glee 
Our astonishment to see! 

Ashen-coated cat-bird 
On the alder spray, 
Mocking all thy fellows 
Through the live-long day. 

Thou highwayman of the wood, 
Our New England Robin Hood, 
Eating eggs thou did'st not lay, 
Making other nests thy prey, 
How with childish wrath we heard 
Tales of thee, thou wicked bird, — 
Of feathered maidens in distress, — ■ 
Longing still to make redress ! 

But thou, saucy cat-bird 
On the alder spray. 

All our maledictions 

Mocked and jeered away! 

Oft amid the leaves descried, 

With thy pert head cocked one side, 

Oddly jerking thy long tail, 

How I 've heard thee jeer and rail. 

Scolding on through all the weathers. 

Note to Third Stanza. — This stanza is intended to set 
forth the popular traditions as to the cat-bird's character. 
The author — as one of his lovers — is inclined to think all 
such slanderous rumors unfounded. 



174 The Cat-Bird 

Like a Carlyle dressed in feathers : 
Then, to mock the mockery, 
Thou would'st bubble o'er in glee. 
O thou cynic cat-bird, 
Mimicking mankind, 
All our whims and fancies 
Laughing down the wind ! 



Tragic, comic actor thou, 
For thy stage an alder bough ; 
Now, some borrowed joyous note 
Pouring from thy feigning throat; 
Now, from wailing puss in sorrow, 
Her alarm cry thou dost borrow ; 
Till, to us bewildered, seems 
Each but fancies of our dreams. 
Mimic actor, cat-bird, 

Thus thy betters do. 
Till 'tween good and evil 

Nothing seemeth true. 



Cat-bird, but I love thee still. 
By the brook-side, 'neath the hill, 
Laughing, mocking in the trees, 
Feathered Mephistopheles ; 
Playing out thy varied part, 
Mirroring the human heart ; 



The Cat-Bird 175 

Fretting, scolding, scornful, then 
Bursting out in joy again ! 

Good and evil cat-bird 
On the alder spray, 
Like thy contradictions 
Rua our lives away. 



The Leaf 

French of Arnault 

FROM off thy frail stem broke, 
Poor, withered leaf, and dead, 
Where goest thou ? 

It said: 
I know not. From the oak. 
My sole support, the storm 
Has torn my frost-browned form. 
Since then, by fickle wind. 
Zephyr or Aquilon, 
From forest to the plain. 
To vale from mountain-top, 
I 'm hurried, driven on. 
My path I never mind : 
Where'er the breezes blow, 
On land or on the main, 
I go, nor care to stop. 
I go where all things go, — 
Where goes the beauteous rose. 
Where the poet's laurel goes. 



176 



Only a Leaf 

IT was only a little leaf, 
That hung for a while on its bough: 
It danced and fluttered ; but life was brief, 
And its place is vacant now. 

It was only a little leaf: 

Did it pay to live at all? 
The sun smiled on it, the cold rains came, 

And then it was doomed to fall. 

It was only a little leaf; 

But on it did shine the sun, 
The winds did caress it, the birds did sing, 

And it lived till its work was done. 

It was only a little leaf, 

But it took its gladsome part 
In the great earth's life; and, at the last, 

Earth clasped it to her heart. 



177 



Loneliness of Truth-Seeking 

'T^ WAS ever so, that he who dared 

1 To sail upon a sea unknown 
Must go upon a voyage unshared, 
And brave its perils all alone. 

He who from Palos, toward the west, 
Sought for a new world o'er the sea, 

Sailed forth distrusted and unblest, 
While e'en his ship hatched mutiny. 

And he who, not content to sit 

And dream of far-off shores of truth. 

Watching the sea-bird fancies flit 

And wavelets creep through all his youth, 

Must sail unblest of those behind. 

And bear e'en love's reproaching tone: 

Only the guiding God is kind 
To him who dares to sail alone. 



178 



God Made Our Lives to be a 
Song 

GOD made our lives to be a song 
Sweet as the music of the spheres, 
That still their harmonies prolong 
For him who rightly hears. 

The heavens and the earth do play 

Upon us, if we be in tune: 
Winter shouts hoarse his roundelay, 

And tender sweet pipes June. 

But oftentimes the songs are pain, 
And discord mars our harmonies: 

Our strings are snapped by selfish strain. 
And harsh hands break our keys. 

But God meant music ; and we may. 
If we will keep our lives in tune, 

Hear the whole year sing roundelay, 
December answering June. 

God ever at His keyboard plays, 

Harmonics, right; and discords, wrong; 

"He that hath ears," and who obeys, 
May hear the mystic song. 



179 



Pursuit 

MY boyhood chased the butterfly, 
Or, when the shower was gone, 
Sought treasures at the rainbow's end, 

That lured me, wandering on. 
I caught nor bow nor butterfly, 

Though eagerly I ran ; 
But in the chase I found myself — 
The inea7img of a man. 

In later years I 've chased the good, 

The beautiful, and true: 
Mirage-like forms which take not shape, 

They flit as I pursue. 
But, while the endless chase I run, 

I grow in life divine: 
I miss th' ideals that I seek. 

But God himself is mine. 



?8o 



In Common Things 

SEEK not afar for beauty. Lo ! it glows 
In dew-wet grasses all about thy feet ; 
In birds, in sunshine, childish faces sweet, 
In stars, and mountain summits topped with 



snows. 



Go not abroad for happiness. For see ! 
It is a flower that blossoms by thy door: 
Bring love and justice home; and then, no 
more. 

Thou 'It wonder in what dwelling joy may be. 

Dream not of noble service elsewhere wrought: 
The simple duty that awaits thy hand 
Is God's voice uttering a divine command; 

Life 's common deeds build all that saints have 
thought. 

In wonder-workings, or some bush aflame. 
Men look for God, and fancy Him concealed ; 
But in earth's common things He stands 
revealed ; 
While grass and flowers and stars spell out His 
name. 

i8i 



i82 In Common Things 

The paradise men seek, the city bright 

That gleams beyond the stars for longing 

eyes, 
Is only human goodness in the skies ; 
Earth's deeds, well done, glow into heavenly 
light. 



The Old Problem 

SHE had just one wee bird in her nest, 
And she loved it, oh, so dear! 
She cooed o'er it, sang to it, brooded its rest, 
And kept it from shadow of fear. 

I saw the nest empty : the mother apart 

Sat silent, with never a song; 
The earth's oldest problem oppressed her 
dumb heart, 

Accusing the world of its wrong. 



183 



Infidelity 



WHO is the infidel, but he who fears 
To face the utmost truth, whate'er it 
be? 
Dreads God the light? and is his majesty 
A shadow that in sunshine disappears? 
Or leads he on the swift-ascending years 
Into a light where men may plainer see? 
He trusts him best, to whom the mystery 
Hides nothing dangerous; who ever hears, 

With faith unshaken, his new-uttered voice, 
And knows it cannot contradict the truth 
It in the old time spoke. Whate'er it 
saith. 
He fears not then, but bids his heart rejoice, 
In old age trustful as he was in youth. 
This only, though called infidel, is faith. 



1 



184 



Calib 



an 



SINCE man with his own heart must feel, 
With his own eyes must see, 
He makes the world in which he dwells 
Or good or bad to be. 

From his own substance, he secretes 

His own enclosing shell, 
And shapes the voices from without 

That must life's meanings tell. 

And, if the wondrous world is small 

And mean to Caliban, 
We only need to turn and ask, 

What is it to a man ? 



185 



Never Weary 

LIFT thy white hands with welcome, 
And clap them on the shore, 
O thou, the never weary. 
The young forevermore! 

No lover loves his mistress 

As I do love the sea. 
Or hastes with such swift passion 

As I do haste to thee. 

Through all the year's long labor 

I hear thee calling still : 
As thou the moon obeyest, 

I bow me to thy will. 

My heart bends toward thee ever. 

Acknowledging thy sway. 
And echoes all thy moaning 

To be so far away. 

Men call thee false and fickle, 

The all-devouring sea; 
And shudder at thy caverns 

With their dread mystery. 
i86 



Never Weary 187 

But thou to me art ever 

The faithful and the fond, 
Disclosing half thy beauty, 

But hinting more beyond. 

Thine infinite suggestion 

Still lures me to thy side; 
Thy quiet murmur soothes me; 

I like thy stormy pride. 

I like thee with thy frowning, 

When on the shingly keys 
Thy mighty hands are beating 

The tempest's harmonies. 

I like thee in thy slumber, 

When heaves thy curving breast. 

While thou dost breathe as gently 
As babe when rocked to rest. 

I choose thee for my mistress. 
And yield thee all thy will; 

Be gentle or be wrathful. 
But I will love thee still. 

Oh, when I am aweary 

Of all my little strife. 
Thou tellest me a story 

Of tireless, endless life. 



1 88 Never Weary 

Far back in primal aeons 
Thou laughedst as to-day; 

And all the slow-paced ages 
Smiled at thy youthful play. 

Forever young thou seemest, 
Thine eye undimmed by tears, 

Thy green locks free and flowing 
As in the earliest years. 

I stretch my hands out to thee, 

I lie upon thy breast, 
And with thy tireless motion 

Thou rockest me to rest. 

My little life so weary 
Thy croon and thy caress 

Soothe with the eternal whisper 
That knows no weariness. 

To me, my brain exhausted, 
My energy grown dull, 

Thy tide proclaims this gospel, — 
God' s cup is always fulL 



Where is God 

OH, where is the sea? " the fishes cried, 
As they swam the crystal clearness 
through. 
"We 've heard from of old of the ocean's tide, 

And we long to look on the waters blue. 
The wise ones speak of the infinite sea: 
Oh, who can tell us if such there be! " 

The lark flew up in the morning bright, 
And sung and balanced on sunny wings; 

And this was its song: "I see the light, 
I look o'er a world of beautiful things; 

But, flying and singing everywhere, 

In vain I have searched to find the air." 



189 



The Pescadero Pebbles 

WHERE slopes the beach to the setting 
sun, 
On the Pescadero shore, 
Forever and ever the restless surf 
Rolls up with its sullen roar. 

And grasping the pebbles in white hands, 

And chafing them together, 
And grinding them against the cliffs 

In stormy and sunny weather. 

It gives them never any rest : 

All day, all night, the pain 
Of their long agony sobs on, 

Sinks and then swells again. 

And tourists come from every clime 

To search with eager care 
For those whose rest has been the least ; 

For such have grown most fair. 

But yonder, round a point of rock, 

In a quiet, sheltered cove, 
Where storm ne'er breaks and sea ne'er comes. 

The tourists never rove. 
190 



The Pescadero Pebbles 191 

The pebbles lie 'neath the sunny sky 

In quiet evermore: 
In dreams of everlasting peace, 

They sleep upon the shore. 

But ugly, rough, and jagged still, 

They lie through idle years : 
For they miss the beat of angry storms 

And the surf that drips in tears. 

The hard turmoil of the pitiless sea, 
And the pebble becomes a gem. 

Too fortunate, from sorrow free, 
Souls miss their diadem. 



Going to Sleep 

AFTER the day's long playing, 
Tired as tired can be, 
My baby girl comes saying, 
"Papa, will you rock me?" 

The busy works of daytime 
Allure her now no more ; 

The books and toys of playtime 
Are scattered round the floor. 

Off now with shoe and stocking, 
Off with the crumpled dress: 

She 's ready now for rocking, 
For crooning and caress. 

And slowly sinking, sinking. 

The night comes down the skies; 

While drooping, opening, winking, 
Sleep settles on her eyes. 

She does not fear the sleeping: 
Out o'er the sea of dark. 

Close held in papa's keeping, 
She drifts in her frail bark. 
192 



Going to Sleep 193 

No matter for the morrow, 

Enough that papa knows; 
With smile undimmed by sorrow, 

Out in the dark she goes. 

So should it be with dying: 
Drop earthly cares and fears; 

In Father's arms you 're lying; 
Look up with smiles, not tears. 

You know not of the waking? 

Be not with fear beguiled ; 
For, when the morning's breaking, 

He '11 not forget his child. 



Life from Death 

HAD one ne'er seen the miracle 
Of May-time from December born, 
Wiio would have dared the tale to tell 
That 'neath ice-ridges slept the corn? 

White death lies deep upon the hills, 

And moanings through the tree-tops go ; 

The exulting wind, with breath that chills, 
Shouts triumph to the unresting snow. 

My study window shows me where 

On hard-fought fields the summer died: 

Its banners now are stripped and bare 
Of even autumn's fading pride. 

Yet, on the gust that surges by, 

I read a pictured promise: soon 

The storm of earth and frown of sky 

Will melt into luxuriant June. 



194 



Galil 



eo 



YES, Galileo, yes, "the world does move! " 
When, on thy knees, in Europe's twilight 
hour, 
Thou bendedst 'neath the priesthood's iron 
power, 
Who dreamed that force thy truth untruth 

could prove, — 
E'en then, swift onward in its viewless groove 
Of air, the old earth sped through shine and 

shower ; 
Until, long hid, thy seed burst into flower, 
And sprang up glad to greet the heavens above. 

And swifter yet, since that disgraceful day. 
The world of thought has swept its orbit 
through, 
Till brighter skies look down on freer 
lands. 
The shackles of the brain now rust away ; 
The Inquisition fades from human view. 
And in its place th' Observatory stands. 



195 



Magellan 



O GRAND Magellan, fixing thy firm gaze 
Upon God's shadow in the upper sky, 
While Churchmen call thy faith impiety, 
And hurl their curse along the ocean ways 
Thy keel is cutting toward the west, where 
blaze 
New constellations over unknown seas, and 

lie 
Worlds undiscovered in a mystery 
Unlifted, though the ages pass like days ! 

**The world is flat, for so the Scriptures read ! " 
"Nay!" cries the hero. "In the moon's 
eclipse, 
The earth's round shadow on its face I see ! 
I read God's works, which are his book indeed. 
And trust the hint that falleth from his lips 
More than all man's infallibility." 



196 



Kepler 



IF God himself six thousand years could wait 
Till I was born to comprehend the scheme 
Of his wide-ranging worlds, I must not deem, 
Though long delayed, the recognition late 
Which comes to me, the seer. Slow-footed 
fate 
Is not quite moveless; and the age-long 

dream 
Of night and darkness now the first faint 
gleam 
Of morning pierces. On the dial-plate 

The sun moves his bright finger; and at last 
The stars, long playing on the brain of man, 
Have set his thoughts in motion, to keep 
time 
With their majestic dance across the vast 
Blue floor of heaven, threading out the plan 
Of God's eternal symphony sublime. 



197 



Darwin 

OGOD, thy "Holy Church infallible" 
Did place thee on the "Index," in the 
name 
Of thy son Kepler, who with single aim 
Sought out thy starry steps, and dared to tell 
Thy secret, that the world had failed to spell 
For ages. And now, once again, the shame 
Of thy true prophet, banned with evil fame, 
The chorus of the Church's curse doth swell. 

But, as did Kepler, so hath Darwin done ! 
With childlike seeking, he found out the 
way 
Where God's mysterious feet had trod 
before, 
And humbly followed. Planet thus and sun 
Hold one's high fame in keeping; and for 
aye 
Men's loving lips will tell the other o'er. 



198 



Ralph Waldo Emerson 

BESIDE the ocean, wandering on the shore, 
I seek no measure of the infinite sea; 
Beneath the solemn stars that speak to me, 
I may not care to reason out their lore ; 
Among the mountains, whose bright summits 
o'er 
The flush of morning brightens, there may 

be 
Only a sense of might and majesty; 
And yet a thrill of infinite life they pour 

Through all my being, and uplift me high 
Above my little self and weary days. 
So, in thy presence, Emerson, I hear 
A sea-voice sounding 'neath a boundless sky. 
While mountainous thoughts tower o'er life's 
common ways, 
And in thy sky the stars of truth appear. 



199 



II 



All Things New 

KOPERNIK'S thought a new world made, 
Though Ptolemy's stars still shone. 
New eyes a new religion gave, 
Yet not a truth was gone. 



200 



*' Members One of Another'* 

FROM slums, where foul diseases hide, 
The free winds travel far and wide. 

The rich man living on the square 
Throws wide his windows for the air. 

His petted child, with every breath, 
Drinks in the viewless seeds of death. 

The rich man, bowed down by his woe, 
Wonders why God should send the blow. 

The parson wonders too, and prays. 
And talks of "God's mysterious ways." 

But know, O man of high estate. 

Your 're bound up with the poor man's fate. 

The winds that enter at your door 
Have crept across his attic floor. 

If you would have "all well " with you. 
Then must you seek his welfare too. 

If even selfishness were wise. 
It would no other life despise. 



20I 



II 



Compensation 

I HEARD a voice complaining, 
"Man is to sorrow born: 
No rose in any garden 

But hides a piercing thorn ! " 

Then one bowed down by sorrow, 
And bruised by fortune's blows, 

Through tears made answer smiling, 
"No thorn but has its rose! " 



Wisdom and Beauty 

THESE sweet-lipped women rule the world 
For, howe'er men may teach, 
Their beauty thrills a million souls 
Man's wisdom cannot reach. 



203 



Man's Critic 

HOWEVER wise a man may be, 
So long as he is only human, 
He may not trust his destiny 

Till criticised by some true woman. 



204 



Mrs. Poyser on Women 

THE women all are witless! " thus he cried : 
"I 've said it often, and I say 't again." 
'I 'm quite of your opinion," she replied: 
"The Almighty made 'em fools to match the 
men." 



205 



Fortune 

A FAIR and stately china vase, 
With choicest flowers fragrant, 
Sneered at an earthen jar, as base, 
Declaring it a vagrant. 

The jar, with modest mien, replied, 
"The virtue thou art rich in 

Might suffer, spite of parlor pride, 
Wert thou but in the kitchen." 



206 



The Shadow on the Beach 

I SEE it in the twilight 
Still moving to and fro, 
A shadow tall and stately, 
With graceful step and slow. 

I see it in the moonshine; 

And then its texture bright 
Seems woven of the glimmer 

That makes the summer night. 

I see it when, low trailing, 
The fog shuts out the bay, 

And in the lighthouse flickers 
The ghost-lamp far away. 

I see it, tall and graceful. 

Glide o'er the hard beach sand. 

While, with their wistful sweetness. 
Her eyes turn where I stand. 

Her lips move as in speaking, 
But yet no sound is heard ; 

And, though I long to answer. 
My pulse alone is stirred. 
207 



2o8 The Shadow on the Beach 

I know it is not dreaming, 
And yet she is not there, 

Though back and forth it paces, 
The shadow sweet and fair. 

And that it is a shadow 

But makes the heart beat more, 
As well I know her footstep 

No print leaves on the shore. 

When now she stops before me. 
The buried years arise. 

And all the past is looking 
From out the sad, sweet eyes. 

Ah, would it were no shadow ! 

Then might I take her hand. 
And tell her all my story, 

And she would understand. 

But, now, alas! where is she? 

I walk beside the main. 
And she walks ever by me, — 

A shadow of the brain. 



1 



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